#not like crawl out of vault and everything brand new again

[shatinn]

Fallout 4 - 16/?

[tomurasprincess]

Kinktober Day 31: Sexual Slavery (Vaulted Bonds)

Day 31: Sexual Slavery Title: Vaulted Bonds Pairing: League of Villains (Shigaraki, Dabi, Spinner, Kurogiri, Muscular) x Reader Word Count: 6k Warnings: Noncon, dubcon, branding, marking, degradation, misogynist Dabi, double pentration (two cocks in one hole and two cocks in seperate holes), praise kink, soft marking and biting, cumflation, size difference, belly bulge, mist bondage, mist tentacle sex, orgasm denial, daddy kink, pet play (of the puppy variety), watersports, overstimulation, rough sex, creampies Note: Sequel to Vault 68, Kinktober Day 1 gangbang. Thank you so much for everyone’s patience while I finished this. Kinktober was an exhausting, wild, but incredibly amazing experience and I’m glad that I can say I finished it! Even if it’s in March, don’t judge. Also thank you to @tamakisbunnygirl​ for talking this over with me and reading it over for me!

Kinktober Masterlist

Life was so very easy lately.

No fighting for survival, no worrying about radiation, no bandits, super mutants, or anything else to avoid.

No, you simply had to please the villains you were locked up with, allow them to use whatever holes they wanted to use whenever they wanted to use them.

You were unimaginably sore for the first week, something that Spinner noticed instantly. He was always the kinder one, the one who soothed your abused cunt with various creams he found. Dabi laughed, of course. He enjoyed seeing you limp around the vault after a particularly rough session with him.

Muscular did too, although he typically bent you over with a boast of seeing how much more sore he could make you.

Kurogiri was one of the kinder ones as well, although his concern always had a mocking, manipulative flair to it. You could never quite figure the man out, and his lack of expressions on his misty form did not help you read him.

Shigaraki would whisper words about how sorry he was while tracing patterns along your skin in an attempt to soothe you., You would almost think he was acting nice, until he whispered that you still have a mouth you can use, and wasn’t he just the best for letting you use that instead of that currently useless cunt between your legs? Or that tight asshole, it hadn’t been used as much, right? He could use it instead.

Currently, you were in Dabi’s bed waiting for him to get back from grabbing food. He hadn’t touched you yet, and you’re enjoying the peace and quiet until he comes barging in. He has a cruel glint in his eyes, erection already straining against his pants and you can already tell this is going to be a rough time for you.

“Why do you have clothes on?” Dabi instantly says, looking with distaste at the long t-shirt and panties you’re currently wearing. You cringe at the tone in his voice.

“I - I got cold,” you mutter quietly, hoping that he won’t use this as an excuse to be even rougher. But you know Dabi by this point, and you know that punishment is awaiting you. “I’m sorry.”

“Not fucking sorry enough,” he growls, palms lighting up with blue flame as he advances towards you. You instinctively crawl backwards from the fire, wanting to avoid it. But he grabs your ankle and yanks you towards him.

His hand touches your shirt, catching it on fire at the same time as he rips it off your body. He tosses it to the side, pulling your panties off too. He isn’t careful with his flames, and you hiss at the pain, the smell of burning flesh rising up and hitting your nose. You glance down and see a small, singed mark on your flesh to join the rest of the bruises and burns on your body from the rest of them.

“Your skin looks so beautiful with burns, doll,” Dabi snorts, “I dunno why I haven’t covered you with them even more.” He holds you down with one hand as he unzips his pants, although holding you down isn’t necessary anymore.

You’ve already learned what happens when you resist Dabi.

He guides himself to your already wet pussy, lining up and snapping his hips to fill you with one sharp thrust. You let out a gasp, still unprepared for the Jacob’s Ladder running up his length despite how many times he’s fucked you at this point.

“You like that, whore?” He chuckles as his hands wrap around your neck. “This is all you’re good for.” He sets a fast pace, barely giving you any time to get used to him. “You’re nothing but a fucking hole for me to use.” You choke and splutter as his grip tightens around your throat, hands reaching up to claw at his arms as you try to get air into your lungs.

The Jacob’s ladder piercing grinds against your g-spot, and despite everything, you feel the tension building up inside of you as your eyes roll to the back of your head. Your lungs burn with the need for air, black spots appearing at the edge of your vision. “You look so fucking good like this,” Dabi laughs sadistically.

Just when you think you’re about to pass out, he releases your throat and you take deep gulping breaths. The lack of oxygen and the insistent grinding of the piercings against your inner walls has your orgasm even more intense as the tension inside of you snaps.

You moan as your pussy flutters and clenches around Dabi’s cock, and he snickers. “Fucking whore, getting off to me choking you.”

His hands reach up to grip your breasts, kneading the soft flesh roughly as he tweaks your nipples. They’re quickly hard and standing at attention as he continues to pound into your now dripping pussy, and you whine as you feel yourself building back up to another orgasm.

“Dabi, please - “

“Please what? You want to cum again, whore? I already gave you a freebie, so you better fucking beg like your life depends on it.”

“Please, I want to cum, please let me cum!”

“Tell me you’re a whore, that the only good thing about you are these fucking holes. You’re nothing but something for me to fuck, a cum dumpster”

You cringe at the words, knowing that he’ll punish you if you don’t do what he says. And as much as you hate it, you know you want to cum again.

“I’m a whore! I’m nothing but holes for you to fuck, Dabi!”

“Be more convincing,” he snarls as his hands heat up on your hips, causing you to scream as he singes your skin.

“I’m nothing but a whore for you to use! I’m a cumdumpster, I’m a useless whore only good for you to fuck!”

His hands heat up even more as his finger comes up to trace patterns on your skin. Tears run freely down your face as you smell burning flesh yet again. You don’t want to, but you find yourself glancing down anyway, wanting to see what he’s doing.

When you see the letter D, you know exactly what he intends to do.

You try to hold still as much as you can, not wanting to make this even worse. But the pain is so extreme, and he continues to fuck you even through what he’s doing. The conflicting feelings has your head spinning, unsure whether to feel the pain or the pleasure. Ultimately, you decide to focus on the pleasure. It’s shameful, but at least it’s not agony.

By the time he finishes his name, you’re cumming again with a choked sob as you squeeze his cock. “Fuck, you really are a little painslut aren’t you? Good, because I fucking love hurting you.”

His pace stutters, becoming uneven as he thrusts right against your cervix and shoots hot ropes of cum against it. You whimper as you feel the heat spreading through your core, body trembling from both pain and pleasure.

He pulls out abruptly, stroking himself out the rest of the way as he shoots cum on your new burn. You sob as it hits the wound, stinging like fire as you writhe around on the bed.

Dabi stands up, throwing your t-shirt at you as he points to the door. “You can get the fuck out now, whore. Don’t want you dirtying up the place any more than you already have.”

You give a nod as you stand up on shaky legs, pulling the shirt over your head as you wobble towards the door. You’re able to make it outside before you collapse on the floor. Spinner just happens to be in the hallway, and he rushes over to you.

“Oh god, are you okay?” He leans down, lifting your shirt up as he stares at the burn on your hip. “That brute,” he whispers quietly, picking you up in his arms as he carries you to his room. “Let me take care of you.”

He lays you down in the bed as he looks for one of his many soothing creams and a washcloth. He dabs at the burn as gently as he can, trying to get as much of the now dried cum off your skin as he can before applying a burn cream.

“Does that feel better?” He asks a bit shyly, only now noticing how undressed you are. He’s always been on the shy side, the one most hesitant to take advantage of you. Although that hadn’t stopped him.

“Yeah, it does. Thank you, Spinner.” He preens a bit at the praise, one of his claws tracing a light pattern down your stomach.

“Can I - “ He trails off, unable to finish the sentence as he glances away. You know exactly what he’s asking, and you give a soft sigh as you nod your head.

He blushes a bit as he lifts your shirt up, making an angry noise as he touches each of the bruises and burns Dabi left on your body. “He is so rough with you,” he admonishes the other man, “you should be cherished like the jewel you really are.”

He slides down your body until he reaches your thighs, leaning down between your legs as he tentatively licks your folds. “You taste so good,” he moans as his tongue dives into your heated flesh.

Spinner’s tongue works its way inside of you, causing you to let out a choked moan as you lay back and let take care of you. He takes the back of his knuckle as he rubs your swollen clit, careful not to touch you with claws.

His tongue fucks you like a cock would, getting far deeper than a normal man’s tongue as the tip grazes your cervix. The feeling drives you mad, and you already feel the pressure of your muscles tightening up. “Spinner, don’t stop - “

He hums against your skin as he keeps tongue fucking you, quickening the pace as he feels you clench down around his tongue. His knuckle works against your clit, only increasing the pleasure as you finally topple over the edge. He licks up your juices as you gush around his mouth like he’s starving before pulling away.

In no time at all, you hear clothes beginning to shuffle and two cocks spring up from his pants. They’re both huge, and you always have a moment of doubt that they’ll fit inside of you.

But despite how kind Spinner is, he’s always determined to make them fit. You briefly wonder if he’ll put one in your ass and one in your pussy, or if he’ll simply fill you up with both of them. You don’t know which one you prefer.

When you feel him rubbing his cocks along your slick, you instantly know what he intends to do. A secret thrill runs through you at the thought of being so completely full.

He begins to push inside of you gently, your wetness aiding him in moving. You let out a broken moan as you feel your pussy stretch to accommodate him, head thrown back as your legs shake. He gets past your tight outer ring of muscle and keeps going, the ridges and scales along his cock pressing against your walls in such an amazing way that you cum just from the feeling alone.

“Fuck, Spinner - “

“Shh, it’s okay, you’re doing so well, sweetie.” Your previous orgasms have loosened you up enough that he’s able to bottom out inside of you relatively easily, stilling for a while to allow you to adjust. “So beautiful,” he murmurs as he strokes a claw down your face. “So amazing, you feel so good around me.”

You preen at the praise, always loving how kindly he treats you.

He waits until you give him a quick nod to indicate you’re ready before he begins to move, and you let out a wail as he starts to thrust. You feel so impossibly full, so amazing that you wish you could always feel this full.

“Spinner, please, faster!”

He instantly obeys you, grabbing your hips to force you back onto his cock. His heavy balls smack against the curve of your ass with every sharp thrust, and you can hear the wet noises of your bodies joining as they fill the room.

“So damned good, so tight for me - you’re squeezing my cock so well, sweetie.”

“I’m going to - “

He moves to start rubbing your clit as soon as the words leave your mouth. “Then cum for me, I wanna see how pretty you look when you’re cumming around my cocks.”

The tension snaps as you clench down around him, gasping and moaning as your body convulses. “It - feels so good - “

Spinner groans as his teeth sink into the meat of your neck, marking you just as surely as Dabi did. Feeling you squeeze around him is more than he can handle, and he follows you into orgasm. Both cocks shoot ropes of cum into you, and you can feel it leaking out around him. Your belly bulges just a bit, a sight that leaves Spinner feral as he thrusts his way through his own orgasm.

Finally his cocks become too sensitive, and he pulls out as he collapses beside you. He pulls you into his arms, cooing sweet words at you as you curl up against his warm scales. “You did so well for me, sweetie.”

He brushes the bite mark on your neck, wanting to feel bad but loving the sign of possession that he left on you. He traces over the bite mark with a claw.

You smile at the tenderness, needing this after Dabi’s rough ministrations. You could stay like this for hours, if it weren’t for Muscular bursting through the door.

“It’s my turn with the toy,” Muscular instantly demands, and Spinner reluctantly releases you as Muscular grabs you. He throws you over his shoulder, carrying you out like a caveman dragging you into his lair.

He takes you immediately to his room, throwing you down on the bed and wasting no time unzipping his pants. “You had Spinner’s cocks shoved up there, so I don’t need to prep you, do I?” Muscular snicks as he frees his massive cock from his pants, not even bothering to get fully undressed before he’s lining himself up with your entrance.

“Wait, please go easy on - “

But it’s too late, and he’s already buried inside of you. Muscular’s singular cock is still bigger even than Spinner’s two, and you feel like you’re going to tear without preparation. He doesn’t bother to let you adjust, pounding into you instantly and drawing tears from your eyes. You feel so fucking full, almost painful in the fullness and he’s only just started.

“Such a good cunt,” he growls out as his fingers dig into the plush flesh of your thighs. He lifts you up onto his lap so that he can thrust up into you faster, getting even deeper and causing you to squeeze around him. “So fucking tight, I can barely move. But I can fix that.”

You feel his cock begin to expand inside of you, and your eyes widen in fear and terror. “Please, no!”

But it’s too late, having already activated his quirk to make his cock bigger. Your walls stretch even more, and you howl as you’re thrown into a sudden orgasm. Your eyes roll to the back of your head, body convulsing as you’re fucked ruthlessly through your orgasm. “Please, too much - “

“I’m not done with your fucking cunt yet,” he snarls as his cock shrinks just a bit, leaving more room for him to thrust even harder. “Going to fill you up so fucking well, gonna make sure you can’t walk for a fucking week.”

You don’t doubt that, having experienced this many times already. You whine and whimper as he jackhammers into you, not even bothering to touch your clit in a mad rush to cum as quickly as he can.

When he finally cums, he forces his way up to your cervix as he cums directly against it. There is so much cum that you can feel your belly begin to bulge, see the little pocket of cum that he’s filling you with. You cum one last time, screaming out your orgasm. Your fluttering walls force some of his cum out of you, causing it to make a mess of the bed underneath you and coating Muscular’s thick thighs.

He pants a bit, relaxing for a second before you can feel him begin to harden inside of you again.

“No, please, it’s too much, I can’t -”

“I fucking say when it’s too much, slut,” he growls at you as he begins to thrust again. This time, he manages to be even rougher with you, fingers digging bruises into your skin as he fucks up into your tight heat. “Wanna fill you up, see that belly bulge even more.”

You whimper as you feel him begin to twitch, relieved that he’s going to cum so quickly while also dreading what happens afterwards. He cums with a grunt, even more cum shooting from the head of his cock. The skin of your belly stretches lewdly, the bulge becoming even more noticeable as the cum is trapped inside of you, unable to leak out around his cock.

He pulls out and strokes himself off the rest of the way on your stomach where the bulge is, coating your skin with hot cum. He reaches down to press against the bulge, laughing sadistically when his cum gushes out of you and soaks his bed. He drops you almost instantly onto the wet spot, standing up and walking towards the door.

“I’m done,” he declares before simply leaving the room. You take a few minutes to recover, rolling out of the bed and collapsing to your knees, unable to hold yourself up on your legs. But you find yourself not needing to walk as a portal opens up underneath you, dropping you into the arms of Kurogiri.

“I think it’s time that you spend some time with your daddy, don’t you?” The man muses, cradling you in his arms as he lays you down on the floor. Mist springs up around you, wrapping around your arms and holding you down. It also swirls up around your legs, forcing you to spread them open and reveal yourself to his gaze.

“That was a question.” Kurogiri says in a dark voice, and you know that means he wants an answer.

“Yes daddy,” you whisper to him, face flushing at having to call him that.

“Good girl,” he praises you, and you feel warmth rise up in you at the praise. “Be good for daddy and he’ll be good to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes daddy.”

You feel one of the cold misty tendrils probing at your ass, and your eyes widen as it begins to push inside. Kurogiri chuckles as he lowers himself to the floor, hand coming down to unzip his dress pants and pull his cock out. You can never tell just how big he is because of the shadows and mist around it, but you know how big it feels inside of you.

Your legs are spread even wider as he settles himself in between them, sliding easily in because of all of the wetness down there. He bottoms out almost instantly before setting a slow but steady pace. One of the tendrils attaches itself to your clit, sucking and pulling at the sore bead and causing you to let out a broken moan.

“It feels so good - “ you moan before remembering to add, “daddy”

“You can’t cum without my permission, do you understand?”

“Yes daddy, I understand.”

But you can already feel the tension at the insistent suckling of your clit by the mist, and you squirm as you try to think of anything else but the pressure building up inside of you. You throw your head from side to side, legs shaking and quivering at the strain of trying not to cum.

“Can I cum, daddy? Please let me cum!”

“Hmm, I don’t think you’ve been a good enough girl yet. Should bad girls cum before their daddies?”

“N-n-no,” you whisper.” Your nails dig into the palms of your hands, hoping the pain will distract you from the need to cum. But it only adds to the pleasure, causing you to almost topple over the edge.

“Daddy,” you whine, “I can’t hold out - “

The wet smacking of his balls hitting the curve of your ass fill the room as he roughly fucks you, pulling almost all the way out of you before slamming back inside. “Yes you can, you’re such a good girl.”

You really want to be a good girl, and so you distract yourself as much as you can. You think of anything and everything, trying to ignore the tendril still attached to your clit. Just when you think you can’t hold out anymore, you feel him begin to throb inside of you.

“Cum now! Cum along with daddy!”

You wail as you obey his command, body shaking as you’re thrown over the edge. Your orgasm is intense and powerful, and he simply fucks you harder through it. You feel warmth spreading through you as he finishes along with you.

“You were such a good girl, daddy is going to reward you.”

You know what his rewards can be, know that sometimes they don’t feel like rewards at all. And this time won’t be any different, as you feel a tendril of mist push against your ass and worm its way inside.

“Daddy, I don’t -” You trail off, not wanting to finish your sentence. Refusing a reward would result in a punishment, something that you did not want.

“Yes? What was that?” His voice takes on a dangerous tone, and you shake your head.

“Nothing. Thank you for a reward, daddy.”

His chest rumbles with laughter. A larger tendril comes to your abused cunt, pushing inside of you as well. “Good girl, don’t fight this.”

The tendrils take turns thrusting inside of you, one pulling out while the other one thrusts inside. The rhythm has your head spinning, stomach tightening up as you near an orgasm. In a near panic, you begin to beg.

“Daddy, can I cum? Please let me cum!”

“This is a reward, little girl. You may cum.”

You breathe a sigh of relief as you’re thrown over the edge, screaming out your orgasm.

“Hey, Kurogiri, I need - “ Shigaraki pauses, laughing in amusement as he sees you cumming around Kurogiri’s mist tentacles. “Oh, I see you’re busy,” he mocks.

“No, we were almost done if you want a turn.”

“I think I do, actually. It’s been a while since I’ve had a turn with my puppy.”

You cringe at the term, knowing exactly the degrading things Shigaraki is going to force you to do.

“I actually got you something, puppy.” He laughs sadistically, pulling out a leash and collar. “Isn’t it cute?”

Your eyes widen with horror, not wanting that to go around your neck. But Shigaraki’s eyes narrow at your lack of response. “Am I going to have to punish my puppy already?”

“N-n-no, you don’t have to punish me!”

“I think I do, since you left off the master,” his voice takes on a dark tone, and you wince.

“I’m sorry, master! You don’t have to punish me, master!”

“So you’ll wear the collar like a good puppy?”

“Yes master,” you say, defeated.

“Good puppy.” Kurogiri’s mist dissolves, leaving you on the floor in a destroyed heap. Shigaraki reaches down, showing you the collar and what it says.

Shigaraki’s Puppy. If lost, please return.

Tears run down your face as he attaches the collar around your neck, locking it in place and pocketing the key.

The key? You realize instantly that it’s not something you can ever take off yourself. You’re stuck with it for as long as Shigaraki wants you to be stuck with it.

He attaches the collar to the leash, yanking you upwards with it. “Get on all fours like a puppy.”

You obey, sensing his volatile mood already and not wanting a punishment. “Now, I’m going to take you for a walk.”

“Can - can I get dressed, at least?” You hated the thought of being paraded around the vault with absolutely no clothes.

“No. Puppies don’t wear clothes.”

You sniffle a bit as you walk on all fours, feeling absolutely humiliated. You trail behind him as he leads you to his room, slamming the door shut behind him. Your stomach growls, not having eaten, and he instantly hears. “Oh, that reminds me. I got you another present.”

He pushes two bowls towards you on the floor.

A food and water bowl for pets.

“If you want to eat, then you better eat like a good little puppy. You glance up at him to see him smirking at you, almost daring you to refuse. You let out a soft sob as you crawl towards the bowls, reaching to pick one up before he snaps at you.

“Puppies don’t pick up their bowls.”

More tears run down your face as you lower yourself down, beginning to eat from the bowl as best as you can. Everything you have been through so far, all of the abuses, and this was one of the worst. Your body absolutely burns with humiliation as you lean down to get water from your bowl.

Once you’re done, Shigaraki drags you up, throwing you down onto the bed and climbing onto you. “Now, I’m going to fuck you and you’re going to be a good puppy.”

You give a quick nod, glancing away as you try to mentally prepare yourself. He wastes no time after your agreement, thrusting deep inside of you with one quick snap of his hips.

You realize something instantly.

You have to pee.

“Master, I - I need to pee,” you whisper quietly, hoping against hope that he’ll stop long enough to let you go to the bathroom.

“Oh? Then fucking go. Puppies don’t use toilets.”

“I - oh no, I can’t, please don’t make me - “

“Here, I’ll even help you.” He begins to press down on your bladder, and you squeal as you feel a bit of pee leak out. You clamp your muscles down, desperately trying to hold it. But it’s no use, and you squirm to try and relieve the pressure.

“Please stop, I don’t wanna - “

“Do it, puppy. Piss all over me.” He presses down harder, and you can’t hold out anymore. You wail as your bladder releases, pissing all over Shigaraki’s cock as he fucks you through it. He thrusts your piss back inside of you, the disgusting sloshing noises of your pussy causing you to wince and want to die with embarrassment.

He reaches down to smack you across the face. “Bad puppy, messing like that in the house.”

You whine as he continues to fuck you, smacking your other cheek as well. It’s humiliating more than it hurts, only being a small sting as he puts no real force behind it. But you still feel tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

“I’m sorry master, I’m so sorry, please - “

“I should make you lick it up,” he growls, and you panic at the thought.

“Master, please no!”

He snorts as he flips you over onto all fours, forcing your head down to the bed as he begins to slam into you. His balls hit your clit and cause you to squeeze around him, and he laughs. “You like being my puppy, don’t you?”

“Yes, master,” you say quickly, not wanting to anger him. He aims for a spot inside of you that makes you see stars, reaching around to take your clit in between two fingers as he strokes you. You whine as you push back to meet his thrusts, seeking your own orgasm. “It feels so good, master!”

“Yeah? Then cum for your master.”

You finish at the same time as he does, feeling warmth spreading through you yet again as he cums inside of you. You whimper as your body trembles, collapsing against the bed in sheer exhaustion.

“Now what do you say?” Shigaraki prods at you, seeking only one answer.

“Thank you master.”

“Good pet.” He pats your head like he would a real dog, and you’re shamed to find yourself enjoying his attention.

“Now come on,” he demands, pulling on your leash. You wince as you slide off the bed, getting on all fours as you crawl into the main area of the vault. Everyone is there, and you burn with humiliation at all of them seeing you like this.

“Now that’s how all sluts should be,” Dabi snorts at the sight of you on all fours. “Naked, with cum dripping from their filthy little cunts.”

Spinner scoffs. “You don’t have to always be so crude, Dabi.”

“I wouldn’t have to be so crude if she wasn’t such a fucking slut.”

Dabi seems to get an idea in his head as he says that, smirk coming across his face. “You know, I have an idea.”

Your heart sinks into your chest at Dabi having any sort of idea that causes that smirk to be across his face. You know you won’t like it, not one bit.

“It’s been a while since we’ve all shared her, isn’t it? I think the little slut deserves to be completely ruined.”

He walks over to you, grabbing your leash from Shigaraki who allows it, watching with deep interest. He sits down on the floor, picking you up by your waist and prodding at your still tight asshole. “I think I wanna fuck you here,” he murmurs as he lowers you down on his cock. You whimper and whine as he slides into you balls deep.

Shigaraki already has his hard cock out, pressing the tip against your mouth. “Open wide, puppy.”

You open your mouth and he instantly shoves himself in, aiming for the back of your throat immediately. You barely remember to breathe through your nose, preventing yourself from gagging around his length. To your horror, you see the rest of the League walking over to you with purpose.

Muscular gets down on the floor facing Dabi, moving you to his massive cock. “I didn’t get her pussy last time we shared her, so it’s mine this time around.” Dabi snorts as he slows his movements, allowing Muscular to line up and begin to push inside. You’re already stretched out from everything else, but the sting still hurts as he slams against your cervix.

You want to complain, ask them to go slower, but Shigaraki begins to face fuck you, balls smacking aganst your chin with every thrust. “Fuck, puppy has gotten so good at sucking cock,” he grunts out as he feels his balls tighten.

“This cunt feels pretty fucking good too,” Muscular laughs as he activates his quirk, causing your eyes to widen in alarm as you feel him begin to grow inside of you again. Your walls stretch and stretch until you think they can’t possibly stretch anymore, but finally he stops before he tears you.

“Fuck, Muscular, the fuck did you just do? She got even tighter, holy fuck,” Dabi manages to grunt out, still pounding into your aching ass. “Keep it up.”

Muscular begins to move, slamming into you with powerful thrusts that has your head spinning. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Spinner take his cocks out and begin to stroke them furiously as he watches you be ruined by the other villains.

Kurogiri also stands nearby, cock out of his pants as he fists his length roughly. “My little girl does look so good like this,” he muses out loud.

Muscular groans as he nears his end, usually the first to cum as he never bothers to savor sex, instead choosing to seek his own orgasm. “Gonna fill this little cunt,” he manages to say as he shoots ropes of cum into you that leak out around his cock. “Fuck yes, so good - “

He pulls out when it becomes too much, and Spinner eagerly takes his place. “I want this pretty little pussy,” Spinner says as he enters you easily due to how much Muscular was able to stretch you out. “Feels so good to have both cocks inside, shit!”

“This dirty ass is pretty good too, so damned tight. You were fucking made for this, little cockslut,” Dabi grunts out, his pace becoming more erratic. “Gonna cum,” he manages to say before he follows through, causing warmth to spread through your ass.

Shigaraki is close too, as you can feel him begin to twitch inside of your mouth. He pulls out however, painting your face with white as he strokes his orgasm out. “Gotta love a facial,” he chuckles as Dabi snorts.

Kurogiri nears his orgasm as well, cumming on your tits as he lets out a soft groan. Only Spinner is left inside of you, and he goes feral on your pussy as he begins to pound you. He lifts up your legs so he can penetrate you deeper, and you cum with a strangled cry as you squirt around him.

You collapse completely, unable to hold yourself up anymore. And what’s when you all hear it.

The loud, clanging sound of the vault’s locking mechanism disengaging.

“The hell?” Dabi says as he sits up, walking over to the door and swinging the vault door open. It swings easily, revealing the stairs that lead to the outside world. “Guess it’s already been a month, huh.”

Hope blooms within you. Maybe they’ll let you go now, maybe you can be free of the hell they’ve put you through.

Shigaraki must be able to read the thoughts on your face, as he speaks up. “You know, puppy...you could just stay with us. Surely you don’t want to go back outside with the raiders, super mutants, and ghouls?”

You freeze for a second. You’ve been in a bubble of safety, having almost forgotten about all the dangers of the outside world. “I don’t - I mean, I was able to protect myself before - “

Dabi scoffs. “You’re a weak little slut who was hiding out in this vault instead of protecting yourself outside.”

Kurogiri joins in. “It wasn’t so bad being with us, was it? We’d protect you if you stay with us.”

Muscular shrugs. “Seems fair enough to me. We protect her and get to use all those holes anytime we want.”

“I - I really like you,” Spinner begins shyly, “and would love for you to stay with us.”

Now that you’re finally given a choice, the first one you’ve truly had for the past month, you are paralyzed.

The choice to leave the men behind, or to tackle the outside world. The vault isn’t sealed anymore, and there’s no guarantee of safety. Raiders take over vaults all the time, after all, and who is to say that won’t happen to this one?

But really; maybe they aren’t so bad. The fact that they are willing to let you go is more than you thought possible.

When you say the words that will seal your fate, everyone is happy.

You; because you made a choice of your own free will to stay with them.

And them; because they knew their broken little toy had no choice at all.

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚❋ ❋ ❋˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧ 

Kinktober: @thewheezingwyvern​, @vixen-scribbles​, @hisoknen​, @trafalgar-temptress​, @wings-flames-and-ashes​, @bakugotrashpanda​, @kittycatkrissa​, @reinawritesbnha​, @dabilove27​, @anxietyplusultra​, @angmarwitch​, @nereida19​, @babayaga67​, @fromsunnywithlove​, @bakugos-cumsock​, @yumeneji​, @the-grimm-writer​, @iwaizumi-chan​, @slashersheart​, @bunnyywritings​, @bakarinnie​, @angie-1306​, @lalalemon101​, @videogameboiwhowins​, @f4nficbaby​, @bbyspiiice​,  @thirstyforthem2dmen​, @blissfulignorance2000​, @bluecookies02-main​, @aryjaa​, @theodora3022​, @raekah​, @ineedmorefanfics​, @serosmissingtoe​, @deathmemeiverse​, @miscellaneous-bnha​

[cricketchaology]

the bile of the beast

this fic includes discussion of the symptoms of PTSD, especially as it relates to eliot's past with violence (including allusions to sexual violence). if these topics are triggering for you, please proceed with caution.

READ ON AO3

it's san lorenzo (again, but different than it used to be) , and it's sweeter this time. it's fake blood on sophie's dress and damien's smirk melting off his face, a president's hands on nate's lapel. it's righting a wrong, but it's also a burning warehouse a country or so away, cops called and infiltrating, and they won't find who did it because eliot is a professional, always has been. they'll find a room full of messy corpses, turning in the evening sun, each as nameless as the last. moreau likes his men to be nothing (outside of him).

it's something eliot knows intimately: the way moreau can sink his teeth in so slowly you don't release you are nothing but a chew toy. and it's an odd thought when you are the dog, that your hide is flea-ridden and blank. that you are the soft toy he humps in the yard, not the doberman across the street that bears its teeth behind the screen door of close-cropped control. that, sometimes, you aren't even the weapon. sometimes you are the display: the show dog, heeling at the hand that no longer bears a treat. that your ribs are the home of boot-toes, breaking you down to the red dust you thought you escaped when you took up the mantle of a flag all those years ago.

so he holds the bottleneck. he clinks the right glasses, smiles appropriately in a way he prays reaches his eyes because sophie will notice if it doesn't and he can't. he's not feeling the happiness he knows is supposed to rise in his stomach at revenge because this isn't, the shapes are all pulled too long, too neat. it's moreau, it's messy by nature, it’s bloodied hands and broken chairs and little bits being removed from base-spine with even tweezers, folding on the floor like christ in the tomb, listening the tut-tut-tut of a man who doesn't love, but he loves you , or you think he does. eliot's grip tightens at the notion.

cause he knows moreau. he knows moreau like the back of his hand. knows how many times each knuckle's been busted and finger broken, constellation tracing each freckle. he knows moreau like a typewriter knows the author's touch, pounding away till the letters are worn. he knows moreau, which he means he knows it's not over, which means he can't stop running because he never, ever could, and it's why he's here now, with a team that knows him too much for him to stay. who will act like tomorrow is a new day, a free one. like with the italian off their backs, nothing is hanging over their heads.

tomorrow is day one of post-post moreau. it's not the first time he's escaped, and it won't be the last. it is a fact he knows the team won't understand- not when they got off easy, this time. last time it was by the skin of eliot's teeth, shoulder bullet-lodged and airplanes unnamed as he crossed ocean after ocean just to put enough distance between him and the hammer so that he could avoid being the next nail. he wasn't free then. wasn't free a day after moreau, wasn't even free before, because when moreau wants something, he gets it. and he wanted eliot spencer less then than he wants him now. the thought makes his skin crawl, remembering the heat of the brand as it grew closer to his inner thigh, kissing the hairs near his groin before drawing away. because moreau doesn't even need to lay claim to own you, just has to say he did. just has to release that wolf-grin and hold your collar like its always been his.

eliot's spent years clawing at that loop, the necklace that bites too tight around his skin even when no one else knows. he cooks, and he smiles, but it's always there, always weighing on the nape like a hand, skin pinching. he's spent years scratching and howling, enough that the red ring is more evident than the too-tight collar itself. enough that he knows it doesn't come off. to know even a moreau locked in a hole in san lorenzo is still the one he remembers, even if the shape is different.

so when nate offers up a glass of whiskey, raised high by an unshaking hand, it takes everything in eliot to smile, lift his beer bottle, and cheer.

///

he does not remember much of the first day post-post moreau, which is something that scares him. he's not sure how it passed him by; he remembers waking up in the hotel, turning in sunbeams as they scrape past the window screen. he remembers the panic of nate not answering the door when he knocked, and he remembers slamming his body into it until he saw nate alive and well, but he doesn't remember the conversation that followed. he doesn't remember what comes between the elevator and the airport, or what movie hardison played on the flight, or how many seats were unfilled. they're the kind of lapses that could get him- get all of them, he amends, wondering how he could forget- killed. because what eliot lacks in computer skills or acting ability he makes up for in counting hats, mapping exits. he pays his stay in blood.

except he doesn't now, or he's not supposed to. the thought haunts him the rest of the flight. he's barely conscious when they arrive back in boston, his head swimming between the then and the now, post and post-post. he doesn't even realize they've landed till the seatbelt light flickers off, and his hands go to help sophie carry all the luggage she packed in place of the carryon he didn't need.

because eliot never travels with a suitcase. when he arrives, the clothes will be laid out on the bed that’s been paid off for the next few nights. the most that ever belongs to him are the shoes, but even that is a danger- particulates are easily traced, so the red dirt is disposed of every other week, burying the people he isn't supposed to say he's been. disoriented as he is, he winds up picking up a stranger's briefcase before he realizes it's the weight of paperwork-filled folders and not a sniper rifle nestled intimately inside.

he drops it like the handle burns. the movement is abrupt enough that his elbow nudges nate's side. his furrowed brows say we need to talk.

eliot wants to meet his eyes but can't. instead, he grounds himself, taking enough of the team's bags that the straps start to wear into his skin, pulling him from the nothing that's begun to spread from post to post-post. he's silent on the drive home, oddly unperturbed by the fact that parker insists on driving (something about how airplanes don't feel fast, and she wants to feel fast, and everyone being too tired to argue) . he doesn't so much as grumble as he makes a roundabout the vehicle, jabbing each tire with the tip of his toe. he stares at the license plate for a moment too long, trying to remember why he's in boston before nate shouts something along the lines of "come on, let's get home."

it's raining; something eliot doesn't register till they've arrived at the office and are piling out of the car. his arms are loaded with bags by the time he hears someone say, "we'll worry about the luggage later," which they surely said before he loaded up. by the time he makes it inside, his hair is curling at the ends in a way it never did in the before- cropped too short then for even damien to find much comfort in running fingers through, though he'd do it anyway. petting more than soothing, and the difference was something eliot learned to sense before the hand was even laid down, the way a knee aches before a storm.

the thought must show on his face, or maybe his disheveled appearance is enough to earn the concern coloring his team as they stare at him, dripping in the doorway with their luggage draped across his body all pack-mule-like. he's shivering, though he isn't exactly sure why, by the time they pull the bags from him, ushering him upstairs as the bar staff eyes them no more curiously but perhaps more timidly than usual. the soles of his shoes squeak against the vinyl, and he flinches, thinking about all the ways a wrong sound could get him killed. moreau is tut-tut-tutting in his ear again, like before, in the during .

the whole team is talking, mumbling mercies and platitudes, and his heart is racing in his chest, pounding like heels on rooftops and down staircases in foreign countries. the rain beats down on the window like fists, like prisoners you knew before they were prisoners and allies you used to trust, and he's not really breathing; the air in the crawlspace is too thin. his hands are shaking, and his CO is saying “steady, steady,” whispering it like a mother to her babe, and the shot rings out with that familiar flashbang of lighting.

"stop," he mutters, and it feels like too much noise, too much noise (surely, they're going to catch him this time). "please, stop. stop."

the air falls quiet, like new york news as the death of osama bin laden is broadcast, like hushed last phone calls on the plane going down, army basecamps right before the armada. it's quiet like death is- like two lovers who don't know each other yet. like hair coiling, blackening, burning in the heat. his breath hitches like he can remember it.

"...eliot?" parker asks, because she's parker, crazy by design, but even now, she isn't touching him, though her hands are outstretched like she wants to. hardison looks at her like she has horns, like she's breaking a vault while the sirens scream, and she is, in every conceivable way. it makes eliot ache in a way he didn't know he could still feel. it makes him want to be the person she thinks him to be.

he meets parker's gaze like he's staring down the business end of a gun. like being the fish in the barrel.  he averts her gaze, transfixed on the city skyline behind her, peering through beating rain. he's scanning for men laying belly-down on balconies, sniper's trained and at the ready. he struggles to make out the horizon through obscuring strands of hair he doesn't remember growing out. he swallows, fingers flexing with a familiar hunger for hurt.

before he's aware of it, he's being lead to the couch, his soaking jacket somehow shed without his knowledge (he was too busy counting hats, mapping exits. moreau wants to know how many hats). the sofa is soft beneath him, swallowing him in warmth better than his standard-issue sleeping bag, and he's helpless against the hands on his shoulders pushing him purposefully deeper. the nails are enough for him to know it's sophie, even though he can't fully see her in front of him. the hair is tucked behind his ear with a tenderness he didn't know still existed. that he doesn't think he can deserve.

he isn't sure how long he sits there, his hands shaking in his lap. he isn't sure how long the silence permeates till it's replaced with the sound of knife striking board, and he comes to understand that Chopped reruns have been playing on the screens ahead, and it's sweet because they think he'd like it, not because he does. his boots have been unlaced, pulled from his feet (now bare, like christ folding on the floor in front of the disciples, moreau saying "wash my feet, eliot") and set gently near the end of the sofa. the thermostat has been turned to a temperature he lovingly calls "oklahoma august," which the rest of the team always whines is too hot, and the smell of thai food from his favorite food truck seeps into the air. he hangs on the scent like a cartoon character to fresh pie on the window.

it's too much like post , rather than post-post, the way they smile at him shambling to the island. the ache of the fights from the past weeks are starting to catch up to him; without a fresh neck in his hands, it's easier to remember the skin peeled from his knees. seeing him, nate holds out a steaming plate of his favorite and eliot takes it slowly. he stares down at it, enchanted by the authenticity of it even after it's pulled from a takeout box.

but you don't eat things you didn't see prepared; it's a lesson he learned after being poisoned in some hole in south america, and that he risked with every hors d'oeuvre moreau would hold to his lips, saying taste this, meaning die for me, like the sound of vultures overhead. something must change in his eyes because nate isn't smiling anymore. because nate is reaching out, taking the plate back, and it's clear that he doesn't understand what he's done wrong, no one does, not even sophie, if the way her gaze fluctuating between eliot and nate is to say anything.

"i'm not supposed to eat anything i didn't cook," he instinctively explains (this must be a test), wanting the sad look to leave hardison's eyes. "you either. i'm not supposed to let you eat anything i didn't prepare- that i didn't taste."

a beat of silence follows, heavy like the snow piling on slates, like soot on a seven-year-old brow. nate breaks it hesitantly.

"eliot-"

"let me taste your food," eliot says, all too much like the during and unlike post or post-post; it's too soft and ungrowled, too eliot and not enough spencer .

the look sophie shares with nate is deadly- like hiroshima at ground zero or kitum cave circa 1980. there's a silent battle wagging there, one eliot can't find the energy to care about because, without even a second of hesitation, parker hands him her plate of too-sweet noodles. she smiles at him, strange in that way parker always is, like a rat taking trap-bound cheese.

eliot takes care, inspecting the color, the smell, and though all of it is wrong, it's parker's, and it smells like how parker likes pad woon sen, which a post , but not post-post, eliot would have the energy to despise tenderly. but that's not who he is now, twirling noodles up on the fork, chewing garishly until he can gulp them down with confidence, like swallowing a key and knowing they can't beat it out of you. like downing the rations before the taste of them reaches your brain. he hands the plate back, feeling lighter, and hardison must be able to tell because he offers his dish up next. he watches as eliot inspects it thoroughly like a jeweler counting carats. the process doesn't take long, and, after a few minutes, each takeout box has been combed through for error, and eliot has determined they are safe enough to settle at the bar for the meal.

he doesn't sit down though, isn't supposed to. he goes to check exits, to stand by the door. he thinks about meetings in moreau's office, thinks about clubs and bars and women in bikinis that moreau never wanted to touch. because women were shows- because if moreau wanted something, he got it, and eliot knows this, so he knows moreau didn't want the women. he knows that moreau hungered for something different- not younger, but meaner. harder. he thinks about moreau in the sauna, beckoning eliot over, saying dismiss your post and meaning drop to your knees, folding before him like christ, like washing feet, like intimacy anew. he thinks about hardison, tied to the chair, and about chapman and his gun and moreau towel-drying sweat from his skin. he thinks about the kick, the move he invented, and hardison sucking air from the pneumatic, thinks about sucking air and-

///

"pause the show," sophie says, right before eliot goes from nervously checking the locks for the dozenth time to crumpling to the floor, his fingers digging claw-like into the edge of the doorframe. his breaths are too quick, huffing in and out, in and out, fast as chopper blades overhead screaming against wind. his whole body is vibrating by the time ted's voice is cut off, hand closing over the cloche in slow motion.

parker is the first to him, light on her feet and perching in front. she observes him like a cat might a dead bird; curiosity and hunger, unfamiliar yet innate. but then that hunger fades, is sated, and she's tucking her knees beneath her body and folding herself by eliot, kneeling. she surrounds him, skin heavy like a blanket, and eliot melts into her like one fades into the air after jumping from a plane- the way the heat melds to your back as an explosion follows you out the door.

with only slightly more hesitance, hardison joins them on the floor, his long arms enveloping them. eliot's hair tickles his nose, hardison's soft breaths blowing them away, then pulling them back like the ebb and flow of waves lapping a shoreline. he closes his eyes for a long moment, batting away the thought of water filling his lungs, and reopens them to find nate staring down awestruckenly.

sophie smiles softly in a way that means she knows something no one else does, cracking the mark open like a pistachio shell. hardison squints, searching for an answer, but she gives none. instead, she pulls nate away by his wrist, casting a look across the room before quietly trailing up the staircase, leaving eliot, parker, and hardison tucked tightly into the corner.

///

the seconds evade him while he sits there, sobbing on the floor. it feels like a weakness, something he should be hiding- he hasn't cried like this since the night his momma died (not in his pristine funeral suit. his father has pulled his tie-tight and said, "now don't you embarrass me," and he didn't then- made sure he never did again.) he hadn't cried like that the entire time during , or post , but now it was post-post and here he was, broken to bits on the wooden floor of a dingy bars' loft in boston.

not for the first time, he finds himself wondering how the hell he ended up here. how he escaped the during , how he made it to post-post. because, really, he's seen greater men die on their first tour. he's been in the hellholes they strung soldiers up in, purple heart wearers bleeding nothing but red, red, red- and he's been that man, russian roulette spun and against the odds making it a baker's dozen rounds before the tortures tired of threats and moved onto toenails. even then, he didn't cry like this- if he did cry, well, that was sweat in his eyes. that was him praying to a lord he stopped believing in at 18, saying, "if you get me out of this one alive, i'll get better" and it never, ever being true.

he isn't aware that parker and hardison have been whispering a mantra of "it's okay, it's okay, eliot, you are here, you are ours" until they pause for breath until parker's voice is addressing hardison, asking, "hey- hey, if it's too much, it's okay. you can take a break."

it's then that he realizes he isn't the only one praying then; they all are, the shoulders of his shirt on either side soaked through, not by the unrelenting rain but by the two closest things he has to family. that hardison's voice has gone from soft and strong to shaky: a leaf resisting those oklahoma winds rising from 40 to 50, from cold fronts and warm one crashing and crushing everything in their path as they war with one another. that parker's body has cooled as she gifted her warmth to eliot's still rain-frozen form.

it's then that he realizes he's lucky. that san lorenzo is sweeter because parker dashed it with maple syrup when he wasn't looking- that hardison replaced the whiskey sours with sodas. that post-post doesn't fit any of the characters sophie has taught him to play, and that he doesn't need to count the hats because nate already has; he knows each shape and each color, the brand names printed on the bill.

the next breath is a little deeper as hardison whispers, "i'm good, i'm good," across him to parker, and eliot feels the rattle of her head against his neck more than he sees it. the way they draw in a little closer, the way parker subconsciously syncs their breathing like sophie's taught her to do with marks, but it's different because eliot isn't a mark- because it isn't post-post, it's something different entirely.

it's the scent of his favorite thai food crusted in the corners of an unwiped mouth. it's his closet being reorganized by color, his go-bag packed with money he didn't put there. it's in-jokes and damnits and distinctive sounds. it's not explaining because they won't make him.

when his breathing is finally stable, he feels them pull back- not entirely, but enough that there's an instant ache in eliot's gut for them to come back to him. hardison's brows are knit, all the anger of the week prior washed away and replaced with nothing but care. parker is smiling gently with that even present lilt to her eye- like she's stolen his watch and is waiting for him to notice.

with slowly re-steadying hands, eliot brushes the last remnants of tears from his face, feeling his cheeks flush slightly when his father's voice tries to rise from somewhere within him. as though feeling the demon climbing up, hardison places a hand on the outskirts of eliot's bicep, holding him gently- grounding him.

"you good?" hardison asks simply, but the question makes all the raw things in eliot sore again in the way a second-day sunburn feels; not quite painful, but omnipresent. warm.

"yeah," he finds himself saying, and it's not something a post eliot would mean, but maybe a post-post eliot does. maybe a post-post eliot can. he finds himself smiling at the notion.

"yeah, i am."

[haloud]

things we could burn in one go (eminence) - chapter 9

also on ao3

Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Isabel Evans & Max Evans & Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Forrest Long/Alex Manes Additional Tags: post-s2, Canon Compliant, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Starts Forlex Ends Malex, Other Characters May Appear, Tags Subject to Update, Mutual Pining, Breaking Up, Getting Together

Chapter Summary: Michael and Isobel reckon with the fallout from Michael’s choices; Maria and Max catch up with him post-recovery.

Excerpt:

Maria sat on the steps, an old CD radio of Rosa’s beside her playing a classic Rosa mixtape, a Third Eye Blind track Michael only half-remembered flowing around her, her humming running under it, glittering minerals in a riverbed. She was surrounded by papers, pinned under painted rocks to keep them from being snatched away, her hair tied back by a rainbow scarf, and she bent over to write in a binder propped on her knees.

Michael rapped on the pillar behind him to get her attention, and when she looked up she smiled and set the binder aside.

“Guerin! You’re up! What brings you here with the sun in the sky?”

“Where else am I gonna go to get my sea legs back?”

“Well, come pull your ass into port and sit with me.”

She patted the low stair beside her and Michael did as he was told, swiping his hat off his head as he approached her. For her it was wordplay, but Michael cradled to his chest something more true than maybe she’d intended—Maria was a safe harbor, a port in a storm. No matter how bad things got, her warm heart and practical mind were a reminder to never give up. Just sitting beside her was enough to make him smile, even though he sat with a good six inches buffer between them, still unsure what boundaries were appropriate, still navigating the uncertain waters of being friends with an ex who meant something.

 (Wednesday, 11:00 am)

  Michael flipped Alex’s key over and over in his fingers, running it along his knuckles, pressing his thumb into the teeth until they left a locking-imprint on his skin, then doing it all over again. At some point, maybe it would start to feel real, if he reminded himself of the thing often enough.

The repetition and stimulation of the rough teeth, the cool, smooth metal, soothed him as he waited on Isobel’s porch. She’d called him here in the first place, so eventually she’d open the door. Until then, he waited. And as he waited, he thought of Alex, because what else was there to think about these days?

(A thousand things, like Jones and Project Shepherd, Max and Liz, and all the work piling up at Sanders’s, but Alex had a way of blotting everything else out, and, no matter how much his brain tried to get him to feel stupid or naïve or childish for hoping yet again, he was going to let himself bask in that shade for once in his life.)

He hadn’t left Alex’s house, still, except to go to work and get things from his own place. At Alex’s, he was still sleeping in the guest room, the both of them afraid that they’d fall back into their old patterns too fast if they fell right into bed. But during the day they shared that space, a kitchen, a den, existing alongside each other as they read or cooked or composed, and the routine wasn’t so different from the tense and quiet days right after Michael’s injury, but at the same time they were nothing alike, not when each tiny glance could mean so much, not when fingers on the soft rasp of turning pages were fingers he could touch, that could touch him.

Everything was different. It was terrifying, and exhilarating, brand new and nostalgic. It had only been a day; it had only been half their lifetimes.

“Ew, you’re glowing.”

Isobel’s voice started Michael out of his thoughts, and he jumped, shoving Alex’s key into his pocket. She was glaring at him, but still he relaxed, because Isobel’s snark was a form of love and her turning scorn in his direction was a sign things were getting back to normal between them.

“It’s all natural,” he drawled as she stepped aside to let him inside.

“Right. Did something happen, or is this just some lesser known side effect of being brought back from the brink of death.”

“Uh…”

In a way, sort of, if only because Michael’s own stupidity had driven him and Alex closer together, but that wasn’t exactly a direct correlation or anything admirable.

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p.’ “Just…”

He fell silent. How was he supposed to talk about being in love? He’d never done it before, and this was a first he hadn’t anticipated facing.

“Alex and I…” he tried again, but found himself only able to smile, still without words, and he raised his arms in a helpless shrug.

Isobel’s eyebrows raised. “Oh my god.”

“Yep.”

“I’m still pissed at you, but if Manes is making you his side chick after everything, I’m going to rip his spine out through his—”

“Isobel, no! It’s not like that,” Michael laughed, shaking his head.

“Well what’s it like, then? I cannot handle him breaking your heart again when we’re already dealing with Max.”

He replied, “My heart is fully intact,” as he headed in and dropped down on her couch, throwing a hand over his heart for dramatic effect. “No, uh, Alex and Forrest had a fight, which sucked, but it led to us getting a chance to talk more about, y’know, us, and what we wanted, and each other, so…”

“So this is rebound,” Isobel snipped.

“Can you stop?” Michael said, half-laughing. Even her pessimism on the subject of love couldn’t pop the bubble around his heart right now. He patted the couch beside him, and she hesitated for a few seconds with her arms crossed, before capitulating and joining him.

“Oh, fine,” she groused, leaning against the arm of the couch farthest away from where he was sitting. “Your funeral.”

The words landed like a lead balloon, and Michael winced as her face grew stormier.

“I’m—”

“Don’t,” Isobel held up a hand in his face. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, what do you want to hear?”

“An explanation, Michael! What the hell were you thinking? Why would you do that? What if he’d just straight up killed you, did you want us to find your body in a cave somewhere or, or never, blown to smithereens by a man who literally breathes fire! You’re so stupid, and selfish, and—” She cut herself off, furious tears welling in her eyes even as the rest of her face didn’t change.

“I know! I know, you’re right, it was stupid. I wasn’t thinking, or, well, I was thinking, but my head was all messed up.” He rested his forehead in his hands and running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think any explanation is going to make any sense now, out of the moment, but I just…everything was going to shit, and I couldn’t do anything for Max, and I thought Jones might have answers, or could help me unlock new powers like you’ve done on your own. So I could protect everyone.”

Isobel threw her arms up and got to her feet, pacing around the couch; Michael tracked her, anxiety dipping and spiking every time she circled him. Her anger pulsing when she passed behind him made his skin crawl, and he shifted in his seat.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” she finally spoke, stopping in front of him.

He kept his head bent forward, staring at his knees.

She continued, “I really don’t. I’ve been trying for twenty-one years, but I still don’t know how to get through to you. How to convince you that you’re not alone, that people want to protect you. To help you. But I’m not Max. I’ve never pushed or pried or fought to cling onto you when you shook us off. I just hung around because I knew you’d always come back.” She took a deep breath. Her voice stayed steady and deliberate. “But Michael, this has gone on for too long, and you went too far this time. You have to let us help you. Otherwise—I don’t know. I just don’t. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

Drops of water speckled the tops of Michael’s knees, and he sniffed, swallowed, mouth dry, throat tight and aching. His sister’s gentle hands threaded through his hair, cradling both temples, right hand over Max’s lingering handprint, but no matter how careful that touch was, he flinched.

Isobel tipped his head up so he had to look her in the eye and said, “You’re my brother, Michael. I love you so much. And I would do anything for you, just like you would—and have—do anything for me. But you need to let me! From here on out, I need you to fucking work with me. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

Tears trickling down his face and dripping from his chin, Michael nodded, not trusting his voice, and Isobel fell forward, his arms opening up to catch her, and they stayed like that for a long time, Michael rocking her back and forth, her clinging desperately to his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he finally croaked, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Or Max. I just, I can’t stop myself, sometimes, I know it’s not an excuse, I know it was stupid, I know—”

“I know,” she interrupted his stream of self-loathing, sitting back to look him seriously in the face. “I was in your head, remember?”

She’d found him beneath a vaulted ceiling, stained glass in shifting, alive, alien colors, walled in with his demons. Defining himself inside the devouring maelstrom by the battles he understood. His whole life, he’d sewed himself back whole, and his work wasn’t pretty, but the patterns made sense, and they kept him sane even when the odds demanded otherwise. The image flashed behind his eyes, but that’s all it was, an image. He shook his head.

“Not really.”

“Well. I didn’t really go snooping, no matter how tempting it was,” she said with a self-deprecating roll of her eyes. “But let’s just say…you don’t owe me any explanations you aren’t willing or ready to give. Those belong to you. I know I haven’t always understood that in the past. We both have things to work on, okay?”

“Okay,” Michael rasped, squeezing her tight again. “I…want to work on them with you.”

“Then it sounds like we’re going to be okay,” she softly replied.

(3:00 pm)

Isobel didn’t let him leave the house until both their eyes stopped being red and puffy from crying; It took multiple episodes of some Food Network show he’d never heard of before she agreed to let him out of her sight, and, in deeply un-Isobel-like fashion, she followed him to the door and pulled him into another hug for the road before she let him leave.

The drive from Isobel’s to the Wild Pony wasn’t really long enough to fully ruminate on how bad he must have scared Isobel to warrant this level of reaction. Logically, he’d known, but emotionally it was just beginning to sink in.

Over the past year, he’d been faced with losing Isobel and with losing Max multiple times—had lost Max, in fact. He knew how it felt. Why should the loss of himself be any different to them? In low moments, sure, thoughts shifted beneath the murk of his mind, lurking demons from childhood, that they didn’t need him, they had each other, a more special bond, he was the odd one out, outside, out in the cold. But on the day to day, he didn’t devalue himself like that, not in so many words, did he? But—

To be surprised? That Isobel was afraid, that Max was afraid, that the both of them stood on the precipice of grieving him and had to process the horror of that fall after snatching themselves back at the last minute? It was a slap in the face, a rude awakening. A lesson that for all these years he’d resisted learning.

The first step to protecting those who loved him was to protect himself. He couldn’t keep shelving it as the lowest priority. They were one and the same.

It sounded fake to his own ears, but he’d just have to say it until the lesson sunk in.

With the windows rolled down, the idle breeze tugged Michael’s hair across his face and cooled the late-summer stickiness from his skin. It was just after lunchtime, a little early for Max to be at work, but since he wasn’t at Isobel’s house, it was faster to check for him here than to drive all the way out to his own place.

If there was one positive to his near-death, it was the way Max was invigorated by a purpose. The healing drained him, of course it did; it could have killed him, and that weighed on Michael’s conscience, but afterward, after it worked and he’d pulled Michael back from death, he smiled. He slept. He bustled around Alex’s house babysitting Michael while Alex was at work, and now, with a little distance from fragile death, that didn’t chafe as badly.

Max deserved a better thanks than Michael had thus far been able to render, and with Isobel’s words still ringing in his ears, there was no better time than now.

He pulled up to the Pony, the fairy lights strung across the patio dancing in the wind, the wood of the old building all pale and real in the sunlight. The old, familiar sign above the door was off as long as the bar was closed, but Michael still took a moment to glance at it nice and long, remembering the feel of fixing it under his hands so the whole place felt less liminal, less like a mirror vision of the beating heart that was the Wild Pony glowing under the night sky, lit from within rather than from the sun.

Faint music played as Michael parked and left his truck, so he rounded the corner of the building to suss it out and smiled at what he saw, leaning against one of the trellis supports.

Maria sat on the steps, an old CD radio of Rosa’s beside her playing a classic Rosa mixtape, a Third Eye Blind track Michael only half-remembered flowing around her, her humming running under it, glittering minerals in a riverbed. She was surrounded by papers, pinned under painted rocks to keep them from being snatched away, her hair tied back by a rainbow scarf, and she bent over to write in a binder propped on her knees.

Michael rapped on the pillar behind him to get her attention, and when she looked up she smiled and set the binder aside.

“Guerin! You’re up! What brings you here with the sun in the sky?”

“Where else am I gonna go to get my sea legs back?”

“Well, come pull your ass into port and sit with me.”

She patted the low stair beside her and Michael did as he was told, swiping his hat off his head as he approached her. For her it was wordplay, but Michael cradled to his chest something more true than maybe she’d intended—Maria was a safe harbor, a port in a storm. No matter how bad things got, her warm heart and practical mind were a reminder to never give up. Just sitting beside her was enough to make him smile, even though he sat with a good six inches buffer between them, still unsure what boundaries were appropriate, still navigating the uncertain waters of being friends with an ex who meant something.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

“Oh, you know me.” She gestured vaguely to the arrangement of papers and tucked her feet up beside her, leaning toward Michael, cutting the space between them in half like it wasn’t worth noticing. Some of the tension in Michael’s chest unwound at her ease around him.

“Hustling?” he prompted.

“Yep. I’m just organizing the events I have planned for the upcoming season and making sure I have space set out for scheduling, details, budgeting, the works. High school me would die with envy; my system was never this good when I was trying to study.”

“I’m definitely impressed. Let me know if there’s anything I can help with, anything you need built, or an extra set of ‘hands’ for decorating.”

“How is that going?” she asked, brows furrowing.

“I’m still getting my strength back. Just gotta keep pushing through and hope whatever Jones did didn’t mess me up for good.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.”

Her hand extended but stopped before touching him, until he turned his hand palm-up, asking her to take it. She did, squeezing him.

“You’ll figure it out,” she said. “And the TK aside, have any of the other powers cropped up? The light, the teleporting? Those were the ones Alex told me about.”

“That’s all I remember, really. And no. I haven’t even tried, honestly.” He looked at their joined hands, her wrist bare of the pollen bracelet he’d promised her and wasted, thrown away like trash in a corner of Jones’s cave. This is blasphemy…

“Do you think you will? Try?” Maria asked, head tilted.

“I…hadn’t thought about it. Been focused on getting back to square one with the TK, but…”

Was doing more with his powers still an option? Was he willing to try, and fail, and fail again, without folding and submitting to all the voices in his head that told him every failure was proof positive of the erstwhile adage that he was worthless?

“Well, you have time,” Maria said, squeezing his hand again.

“What about you?” Michael asked. “Any visions?”

Her face shut down. She let go of his hand to smooth both hers down her knees then fold her arms around herself, turning her head away. “No. Still nothing. A few dreams, but it isn’t always easy to tell what’s a normal dream and what’s a vision, and with you out of the woods, the most dire ones are already Jossed.”

“What about Mimi?”

“Huh.” Maria pursed her lips for a second, then said, “I haven’t noticed any change in her? But I’ll have to ask and see what she says. I’m not even completely sure our powers work identically, with the things she’s said about being unstuck in time…I don’t always get that same feeling.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Michael promised her. “Even if it means having to go back to Jones and ask what he knows—”

“No!”

She wheeled on him and smacked his arm lightly.

“Absolutely not! Michael!”

“Not alone, obviously!” He defended.

“Not at all. Jesus Christ. I’ll tell Isobel you said that—I’ll tell Alex—”

“Maria, c’mon,” Michael whined, taking her hand again in an attempt to connect them and calm them both down. “I just don’t want to rule out that he’s meddling in more ways than we know. I still think he’s fucking with Max. You deserve answers, if that’s what’s going on.”

“Not at the cost of your life. Not ever. It could be a hundred other things, too. Stay away from him, Michael, I’m serious.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Good,” she said firmly, wrapping her arm around his again and leaning into him. He let out a long, slow breath as she relaxed.

“You know, in Jones’s cave…”

“Mm?”

Michael carefully encircled her wrist with his fingers. “I lost the bracelet I made for you. The backup one I promised.”

“Are you feeling guilty about that? Because please, don’t,” she replied, covering the hand on her wrist with her other. “That is the last thing on my mind.”

“But I—”

“Hush. I’m glad you had it with you, whatever happened to it. It’s good that you opted to protect yourself, even if it didn’t work.”

“I thought your powers were offline.”

“The visions, maybe. But I don’t need to see the future to read you, Guerin.”

“You are something else, DeLuca.”

“Oh, I’m aware.”

“Hey, Maria—oh! Michael!”

The two of them turned toward the backdoor at the sound of Max’s voice.

“Hey, Max,” Maria said. “Is the inventory finished?”

“Yeah, I was just coming to report back.”

“No need to be so formal,” she teased, standing up and brushing dust from the seat of her pants, looking at the papers around her with her hands on her hips. “I was hoping to get your opinion on some plans, Number One, but someone interrupted, so they’re not quite ready yet.”

“Guilty as charged,” Michael drawled.

Max reached out a hand, and Michael took it to humor him, letting him haul him to his feet.

“I’ll let you off the hook this time,” Maria said as she led the way back into the bar, cool and dim in the daylight. “You can sweep up to say you’re sorry.”

“My pleasure,” Michael said, reaching out a hand, hoping he could summon the broom as nonchalantly as he once could. It sat unresponsive until a spike of formless frustration zipped through him, at which point it flew to his hand fast and hard enough to sting his palm when he caught it. Great. Just what he needed right now—puberty flashbacks.

“I need to run,” Maria said, stowing her binder behind the bar. “Late lunch with Rosa. I’ll see you later, Max—Michael, it was so good to see you. Say hi to Alex for me, okay? I know you’re gonna see him before I do.”

She left with a wink while Michael was still pink and stammering. Maybe Alex had told her already—or maybe that was just Maria, putting him so at ease it was easy to forget how much she saw. His chest glowed so warm he couldn’t stop blushing at that casual acknowledgement, that easy validation, that he and Alex—that Alex and he were what they were to each other, now, again.

“Wait, is she talking about you staying over there, or does she mean—dude!” Max grinned ear to ear and bounded out from behind the bar to pull Michael into a back-slapping hug. “Congratulations!”

Old, brotherly habit had Michael squirming out of Max’s affections, but it didn’t dent his exuberance; he retaliated with a swipe through Michael’s hair, making him duck further out of range, huffing and laughing all at once as he tried to fix it again.

“Yeah, um, Forrest and Alex broke up, and then one thing led to another, so.”

“I’m really happy for you, man.”

“I—thanks. I’m…I’m really happy, too.”

The sudden urge to comfort Max gripped him, a strange survivor’s guilt that things would be working out for him and Alex and Max and Liz would still be so far apart. But it wasn’t his place to throw that in Max’s face now, so he bit his tongue and basked in Max’s honest happiness for him.

“Could you feel, uh, any of my emotions through the handprint?” Michael asked. He ran his hand through his hair over the spot on his temple where Jones had held him, erased by Max’s healing hands, then dropped it back to his side abruptly, flexing away the phantom stiffness that still plagued him, that probably always would. He gave it a shake as if to chase away nervous tingling.

“Nah. But it’s not like I’m looking; I respect your privacy, man.”

“’preciate that,” Michael snarked, and Max just shrugged.

“Any particular reason you ask? I don’t need to know what you and Alex are up to,” Max joked.

Michael considered his answer for a little bit as he made his way between the tables. After all, it wasn’t as if this was the first handprint Max had ever given him. The ones on his neck and hand cut off by his death aside, dozens of times over dozens of years, Max had practiced healing on him and they’d explored that connection. Michael was always the guinea pig; he never wanted for injuries to work on, after all.

But there’d been a lot of handprinting over the past year and change. Max felt something from Liz; Liz felt something from Noah; Rosa and Max had a connection strong enough to tether Max to the world of the living. And then there was Michael, with Jones’s voice in his ear, dripping condescending words about his lack of psychic ability being phenomenal, considering.

At various times in his life, Michael had looked up at the stars and wondered in the silence what it was in him that was irreparably broken.

“Just curious. It’s been a while, and all juiced up like I was, I was wondering if anything felt different.”

“Nothing different. Just you.”

Max smiled like that was a good thing, a comforting thing. And you know what? In between the adrenaline of change, good and bad, in between the rock of Project Shepherd and the hard place of Jones, on an afternoon in a closed bar, a home to both of them, alone with his brother, Michael let it be.

He cleared his throat. “Good. So there’s no…interference or anything? Nothing weird lurking around up there?”

“Not that I can tell; Isobel would probably know better than I would. Whatever he did to you was bizarre, man. It wasn’t like the way, uh, the way I’ve killed people before. Or the way Noah killed.”

“I don’t think he was just trying to kill me.”

Michael made his way over to a booth and beckoned Max over; he lingered over his work for a glance at the clock and then came and joined him.

He continued, “He kept going on about teaching and knowledge and this being the wrong way but the most efficient. He knew it would hurt me, but maybe it would have worked better if he did it to someone more, uh, receptive than me.”

“What are you talking about?” Max leaned over the table, brow furrowed. This close up, the dark circles below his eyes were more noticeable. “Michael, what he did to you wasn’t in any way your fault—”

“I know, I know, that’s not what I mean. Just…look, I saw the security footage from Caulfield, from the day of the Valenti incident. The way that alien approached Jim Valenti and put his hands on him was identical to what Jones did to me, and I think maybe that guy was just trying to communicate but it fucked up a human in a way he either couldn’t expect or was too out of it to realize. And, well,” Michael gestured to his own head. “I’m the most human of the three of us up here.”

“I…huh.” Max sat back and drummed his fingers on the tabletop as he processed that. “Well, whatever the case, it proved you and Isobel were right about him. He can’t be trusted. Nobody should have any more contact with him. We’ll start doing our monthly drop offs contactless until we all figure out what should be done with him.”

His voice was firm, businesslike. Traffic Stop Max was Michael’s least favorite version of his brother and he’d hoped that his turn to the civilian would’ve put that guy to rest, but he had a tendency to rear his head in a crisis.

But in this case, he saw through him, and that façade was hiding something.

“How do you feel about that?” Michael asked, leaning back and slouching, reflecting Max’s rigid body language the way he had for a decade, cops and robbers style.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. He almost killed you; we’ll do what has to be done.”

“Uh, it definitely does matter. You’re the closest thing to a next of kin he’s got, as far as we know. If anyone gets to decide what happens to him, it’s you.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“Is it? ‘Cause, look, I know I fucked up a lot of stuff running off to Jones half-cocked like I did. I don’t want to set off a chain reaction of more bad mistakes that rips us apart again when we’re just startin’ to…” Michael trailed off with a self-conscious shrug. It was realer than he’d intended to get, but it was the root of the issue, wasn’t it?

Max’s face softened, and Michael slumped lower in the booth.

“You’re not. You won’t.”

“You’re just saying that—”

“Michael.”

That tone was always a coin flip if it’d get right under Michael’s skin or if it’d shut him up. It landed on the second one this time, to Michael’s relief.

Max said, “No chain reactions. What we were doing before wasn’t working, okay? I knew I wanted something from Jones, but I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and take it. All you did was force us to make a choice when I would’ve dug my heels in and not been able to for a long time otherwise.”

“The answers you’re looking for, though, you deserve to look for them if it’s what you need,” Michael forged on, battling his clumsy tongue. “I should’ve said that before. You deserve to know who you are and to learn who that is in whatever way you can. Everybody deserves that.”

“Thank you. I mean that. But I was getting so desperate—the things I was thinking of doing—I scared myself, okay? I didn’t think—I don’t think I am that person. And being this person I am right now and who I want to be right now is more important than any answers about the past, if that’s what it means to find them.”

Michael sat with that, looking Max up and down, sitting with his own feelings as much as Max’s words. Parsing his own reactions to Max was something he took steadier, more carefully than most other things in his life. It was a set of muscles he needed to practice with as much as he needed to get power back to his telekinesis.

“Okay, man. I respect that,” he said finally, leaning over the table to punch Max in the shoulder. Max made a face and rubbed that spot.

“Ow, man, thanks, I guess.”

“Damn, did I get you in your writing arm?”

“Try my drink-mixing arm. If I’m off tonight, I’m ratting you out to Maria.”

Michael let out a scandalized noise and slipped out of the booth.

“Where are you going?” Max laughed, dark eyes shining with life in a way Jones’s never could. For all they were identical, Michael barely saw the resemblance.

“To lay low, what do you think? You’re makin’ me a fugitive.”

“Uh huh. Good luck; you know she’s just going to ask Alex.”

“Damn it. The things I do for love.”

A smile on his own face as soon as he turned his back, Michael was almost at the door when Max called his name and he turned to face him again.

“Michael? Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Asking. Listening.”

Those two words held a lifetime of desperate loneliness between them, and Michael would be sitting with that, too, as long as he was holding it in his head, making it a conscious decision, to do right by his brother.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said.

“I wanted to,” Max replied simply.

“Well in that case…I guess you’re welcome.”

Michael’s phone buzzed in his pocket, not the single pulse of a text but the longer jangling of a phone call. He fished it out, smiling when he saw the name, and he didn’t even wait to get privacy from Max before answering.

“Alex—”

“Thank God. Where are you, Michael? Are you okay?”

“Alex? I’m fine, I’m at the Pony, what’s wrong—”

Max hurried to Michael’s side.

Alex repeated, “Thank god. Don’t come home, do you hear me? Do not come back to the house until I give you the all clear. Stay with Max and Maria.”

“What? No!”

But the line cut off midway through his protest, leaving him with nothing but the dial tone.

[author-a-holmes]

All The First Lines

I've stolen this "First Line" game from @christinawritesfiction because it looked like a LOT of fun!! Hope you don't mind, hun!

How to Play

Share the first line from each chapter of your current Work In Progress.

Tagging Forward To; @faelanvance, @afoolandathief, @sylhorn, @queen-kass-the-writer, and anyone else who'd like to play! <3

Spoilers for Takeover, Book Two of the Stolen Stories beneath the cut...

Taglist for Takeover/Stolen Stories Content: @josephinegerardywriter and @strangerays

"Why did you have to knock over the bloody vase?" Stella grumbled as she and Reilly ran through the streets of Antillune, the city guards barely a street behind them, and gaining.

Swipe... swipe... clang.

It didn't take them long to reach the depository, and Reilly found them a shadowed doorway where they could watch the building while considering their options.

She stared at the closed door, listening, but it took a moment or two before Reilly stepped away and it was only as he did so that Stella was able to turn back to the three vaults.

By the time Dara had finished questioning her about the evenings events, the moon had been high in the sky and Stella had wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pass out.

It was still early enough that Stella had found the part-ogre in her rooms finishing breakfast.

Midday gave Stella a little over an hour to prepare, and by the time she'd got back to her room with a brand new set of guild leathers signed out of the armory in her name, she needed every moment of that time to figure out exactly how everything strapped into place.

When Reilly woke slowly, he quickly recognised one of Fahren's private rooms at the far end of the healers hall, but it took him several long moments, with his eyes pressed closed, to fight back the headache enough to remember what had happened.

Stella knocked on the door to Myris' lab lightly, but Reilly didn't wait for an answer, simply pushing the door open and guiding her inside with the arm he still had slung around her shoulders.

It took several days for Reilly to feel like himself again.

Dara had led the way down to Myris lab quickly, insisting that they barely had enough time to prepare everything for the party in Upper Antillune, but Stella suspected that her motive for their haste had more to do with the violent cursing that Reilly had started up as the pair of them had fled his office.

[moprocrastinates]

and sung me moon-struck; kissed me quite insane (I think I made you up inside my head)

Pairing: Jude x Cardan

Words: 2,080

Summary: It’s not like she intended to lose them. That would be cruel, and as much as Jude regarded as a ruthless, cunning, royal bitch, she wasn’t cruel. No, no, that title belonged solely to her beloved husband, who, if she couldn’t find her gift in the next day, wouldn’t be getting much of anything for their first anniversary.

Jude wrote Cardan letters during her time in exile.

Warnings/Rating: T. Some kissing, and some angst.

Notes: I FINALLY WROTE SOMETHING AFTER, LIKE, FOUR YEARS AND SO MANY OTHER FANDOMS. (Please take pity on me if it’s not good. I’m tired, and I promise I’ll get better.)

AO3

Jude would like it somewhere on the record that she tried. 

Really. She did. 

It’s not like she intended to lose them. That would be cruel, and as much as Jude regarded herself as a ruthless, cunning, royal bitch, she wasn’t cruel. 

No, no, that title belonged solely to her beloved husband, who, if she couldn’t find her gift in the next day, wouldn’t be getting much of anything for their first anniversary. 

Not that it mattered, really. Cardan had said he didn’t want anything, in the same stupid way he had confessed, “Of course it was a trick!” when she returned to Elfhame to save Taryn’s ass. 

“Sure, Cardan,” Jude huffed, blowing a tress of curly hair out of her face with a heavy breath. All heart and steel, she moved with a ferocious grace as she tore through the castle. Windows bright with moonlight cast ghostly shadows across the floor, and a soft breeze, warm as the summer outside, did nothing to ease Jude’s anxiety. Thankfully the hallway was empty; she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t explode in an odd faerie’s face should they bump into her. 

“I don't want anything, dear Jude, because why would I desire possibly anything when I have you?” Her tongue tripped over the delicacy of Cardan’s tone, and she sighed. A year later, and still her mockery of Cardan wasn’t nearly as good as it should be, but she figured she could blame that on her nerves. 

Once she found the damn letters, she’d do a better impression. In front of him, no less. Her husband caused her so much grief. (She wouldn’t have it any other way.)

“Focus, Jude,” she told herself, deep brown eyes moving straight in front of her, brows beginning to furrow. “Don’t let Cardan distract you.” 

Over the year since her successful return to Elfhame, Jude found herself utterly besotted (Cardan loved the word, and so she’d begun using it-- damn him) with her husband. Not that she hadn’t been before, but living beside Cardan and experiencing all that he is in a brand new light was something entirely new. Every day, it seemed, brought something new from Cardan to Jude: cups of tea with milk and teaspoons of hot honey right as she woke up, hot baths, sprinkled with lavender and mint, drawn when she came in from sword practice, and gentle kisses and massages whenever her ire felt strong enough to control all the roots buried deep within their land and force them to ruin Elfhame itself. Cardan’s words, always soft, sometimes sharp, remained her constant. HE remained her constant, and it was now, marching through the hallway, that Jude reminded herself that she needed to show him the same feeling he gave her. 

She needed her letters. But they were nowhere to be found. 

The mortal world, and Vivi, had been absolutely no help. “What kind of place do you think I’m living in?” Vivi had asked her as Jude flipped up cushions, emptied cupboards, and pried up ceiling tiles in their formerly-shared apartment. “I’m not a vault! I’m not just storing stuff for you for a rainy day! You live in a castle, Jude! You have over a hundred rooms!”

“I had hoped you would at least keep some things of mine!” Jude jerked her old mattress away from the wall and peered behind it. Nothing. Fuck. “You know, sister sentimentality and all that!”

She didn’t have to turn around to see the half-smirk on Vivi’s face. “That’s exactly why I’ve kept as little as I have.”

Ugh. Sisters could be the worst.

Now, her steps were loud in the empty, elegant hallway, slim, glittery boots clomping down onto the marble floor as she strode to her rooms. Her-- their-- rooms, right. She still wasn’t used to that.

If she was honest, she still wasn’t used to this life. Or love. 

She tried. Really, she did. Jude gave him kisses and hugs and curled her body around his in the evenings, strategy plans in hand. But she wasn’t as good at words as Cardan. Now, even a year later, despite having said them before, those three words escaped her, forced her mouth dry, and floated off with the wind. Madoc had taught her to keep her feelings close as a method of control, of power, never letting an enemy know one’s weaknesses. She’d done that her entire life, and even with Cardan, it was difficult. So she showed it differently than he did. Was that her problem? Her love shaped itself physically, her hand crawling into his, her face buried into his shoulder.

Did he know how much she cared if she didn’t use the words?

“I know you love me, my villainous girl,” Cardan had told her just last week when she’d shyly asked about their upcoming celebration, and the look on her face -- frustration, probably-- made him smirk. “I don’t need anything, I promise you.”

“Sure, Cardan,” she snorted again. His voice had become somewhat of a nuisance in her mind, a conscious that, if she ever let it slip, he would lord over her until they vanished into dust. 

They had to be in their rooms. Right. It was the only logical place.

Cocking her head, Jude looked around her half of the room. Everything seemed to be where it was when she left this morning, so maybe Cardan hadn’t been poking around, the way he often did when she was this scatterbrained. He probably knew something was up, and if he had any brains (which he did-- she wasn’t fooling herself), Cardan would absolutely know, and then he would win. 

Damn him if he knew something she didn’t want him to know just yet. Damn him if he won the game of feelings. 

“Stupid, Jude!” She cried out, brows furrowed as her fingers reached for the most coveted of her hiding spots under the nearest floorboard to her bedside table. “He’s going to know, and you’re going to get caught, and he’s going to outdo you on this.”

“Outdo you on what?” 

Jude immediately dropped the floorboard, and tried not to look like she’d been caught with her hand in a sweets jar. At the entryway stood Cardan, her beloved, beautiful husband, a thick eyebrow arched in her direction. His black eyes shone with something akin to sunlight. “Uh, nothing. Nothing.” She stood up, brushing her hands against her dress’s skirt. “I’m just looking for something. It doesn’t concern you.” 

“Ahh,” Cardan said, and stepped toward her slowly, black eyes glinting as he traced the black dress she wore. He licked his lips, and oh, mercy, he was going to kill her, and he’d still win. “You’re such a terrible liar, Jude.”

“No, I’m not!” She snapped, but even before she said the words, she knew she was caught. 

Cardan merely laughed, a soft sound. “Defensive to the end, are we?”

Jude raised her chin. “As always, my king.”

She refused to break eye contact, which was probably why she didn’t feel his hands until they touched hers, circled them like they were telling hers a secret. “Not with me, Jude,” Cardan whispered, eyes leaving hers to watch his own fingers trace a pattern on her palm, “Never with me.” 

Well, shit. Swallowing a breath, she whispered, “I can’t find your gift.” 

Black eyes flashed back to hers. “What gift?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Cardan.”

“I know nothing, darling,” he purred, and Jude felt his tail curl around her right ankle as he stepped close. Pale hands came to clutch at her upper arms. “I promise.”

“Uh huh,” she eyed him skeptically. Cardan merely blinked slowly and sweetly back at her, and damn if he didn’t know how to play her like a faerie fiddle. 

She hated that she loved him so much. 

“Care to share, Jude?” He said, and stepped away, choosing to sit on the bed although his eyes never left hers. 

Letting out a sigh, Jude plopped herself down beside him. Her sigh was a long one. “I lost your letters, Cardan.” 

Cardan raised a brow, looking confused. “My letters? I thought you never received them. I thought my mother burnt them before they reached you.”

“Yeah, I never got those.” Jude sighed again, this time tucking her hands under her thighs. She shifted, looking down at them, and knew Cardan tracked the motion. It was a nervous habit of hers. “I’m talking about my letters to you. I wrote them when I was in exile, and they contain some, uh, of my feelings.” She gulped. “My feelings then, about you. The things I can’t say. Even now. I was going to give them to you tomorrow as an anniversary present.” She swallowed, and felt that it was suddenly thick and harder to do than before. Be vulnerable, Jude thought. “I wasn’t sure you knew how I felt about you, so I decided I’d give them over, because I know I don’t always say how I feel. And it’s been a year, and you’ve been so loving and beautiful and sarcastic and verbose about your love for me. I wanted to repay that kindness to you. But I can’t find them.”

When Cardan didn’t respond, she looked up. Her husband had frozen, eyes locked on her hands in her lap. “Cardan?” 

“You wrote me letters?” His voice was soft. “You cared enough to write letters?”

“Cared probably isn’t the right word. Felt strongly, maybe.” Jude tried, wincing as her words stumbled through the air. “I just didn’t want to admit what I felt, even to myself. So I wrote letters. I read somewhere that it was a way to let someone go.” Cardan lifted his head to look at her. 

“You loved me then,” he murmured, and Jude saw in his eyes that he knew he was right. “You loved me even when I exiled you.” Cardan’s tail lashed once, twice, and she saw that the monster she had once thought he was had awoken under the surface. “I thought this was one-sided, that you didn’t love me back despite all we’d been through together. I thought that was why you didn’t come back right away. I thought I’d finally scared you away.” 

She swallowed. “Of course I did,” Jude said quietly. “I’ve never been as good with words as you, but I wrote letters because I didn’t know how else to tell you I felt so much for you, not when I thought you were happy you had finally gotten rid of me, tricked me, humiliated me, that you were celebrating over how you’d finally triumphed over your stupid mortal seneschal.” Softly, she reached out and curled her hand around his. Immediately, his thumb found the ruby ring on her finger and twisted it around gently. “I just didn’t know you felt the same. I didn’t know that you longed for me the same way I pined for you. I thought I would burn the letters and let you go.”

Cardan’s eyes found hers, soft and smoldering and stoked embers all at once. “I love you, Jude. If I had the choice, I’d find you in every life-- so we’d never have to let each other go.”

Jude blinked, light tears falling down her face. “I’m so sorry, Cardan,” she murmured, and huffed a small laugh as a fresh wave of tears streaked down her face. “You deserve to know, and I can’t-- I can’t-- I love--”

“Jude, my darling, my goddess,” Cardan’s hands were all over her body, pressing into her cheeks as she cried. She felt his fingers stroke her there, and it was a new sensation, having him know everything and still clinging to him. “I know, dear Jude, I know.” Before she knew it, she was being pulled into him, gentle hands pressing her face into his shoulder. “You don’t need to say it. I know how much you love me.” 

She didn’t know how, but she found his lips, pushing hers into his as desperately as she could. Jude wove her fingers through his hair and pulled, sharp and sweet, and his answering groan was loud enough that she wrapped her arms around his neck tightly. “Please, please, please know.” She whispered, breaking the kiss. “Please, Cardan. Please hear me.”

“I do, Jude.” He said, nudging his forehead into hers, eyes closed. “I do. I love you.”

And so she kissed him, breathing him in, and he whispered it again.

[cruelangelstheses]

with quiet courage

fandom: coraline rating: G characters: coraline, wybie words: 2.1k additional tags: canon compliant, post-canon, fluff, angst, mental health issues, character study description: years later, wybie gives coraline a gift. a/n: hi, this was written for the @ethereal-zine! i just thought it would be interesting to explore the long-term effects that the whole ordeal with the other world could have on coraline’s mental health. title from “with quiet courage” by larry daehn

read it on ao3

—

Something feels...wrong.

She can’t explain it, can’t even fully comprehend it herself, but the house feels different tonight, like it’s just waiting for the right moment to pounce. Every creak sends chills down her spine. This isn’t right.

Coraline glances out the kitchen window at their garden, but finds that she can’t really see it, despite the fact that the moon is close to full, last time she checked. She raises her gaze to the sky, squinting in confusion, and her heart nearly stops at what she sees: a shadow passing over the moon in the shape of a button, holes and all.

Gasping, Coraline pushes herself away from the window, every inch of her suddenly on high alert. That’s when she hears it: a familiar metallic skittering across the floor, a sound she knows all too well.

She bolts out of the kitchen and up the stairs, leaping into her bedroom and slamming the door shut behind her. Her blood rushes in her ears.

It only gives her a few moments’ reprieve before she hears the skittering again, even closer and louder than before. Coraline backs away from the door, frantically searching her room for anything she could use as a weapon. She digs underneath her pillow for the pocketknife she bought in secret a year or two ago, but inexplicably, it’s nowhere to be found. Her heart nearly stops when she sees the hand crawl in from underneath.

The hand is severed at first, but from its wrist seems to grow an arm, a torso, another arm, all made out of needles. Coraline steels herself as the Beldam materializes before her eyes.

“You are my daughter,” she hisses, as something else appears in one of her hands. “You’re going to stay with me forever.”

In one hand, she holds another needle, already threaded. In the other is a gift box, and inside it sits a pair of black buttons.

“Hold still,” the Beldam continues. Coraline tries to move, to fight, to do anything, but her whole body is suddenly frozen. “This will only hurt a bit.” She takes a step forward, needle pointing at Coraline’s face, and then—

Coraline jolts awake and sits up rapidly, trying to catch her breath. The morning light streams through her bedroom window, a reminder of where she is: not the Other World, but the real one. Reaching under her pillow, she feels for her pocketknife. She is seventeen now, but still the events of her childhood plague her dreams.

She still has her stuffed animals. Most of the time, they sit on her shelf, watching over her like guardian angels, ensuring that danger doesn’t even make it through the doorway. Sometimes, though, on nights where the house creaks more than usual, on nights where Coraline swears she can feel a sinister gaze burning into her back, she grabs a few of them and sleeps with them in her bed, holding them tight against her chest, as if they will cast a bubble around her body that protects her from any harm. Sometimes she doesn’t even sleep, just lies awake in terror for hours on end. She’s far too old to sleep in her parents’ bed, but some nights, she tiptoes over to their bedroom and cracks the door open, just enough so she can see that they’re still there, safe and sound.

Coraline loves her parents, but they don’t completely understand everything. It’s not their fault; they have no memory of being kidnapped by the Beldam, and they weren’t witness to anything else that happened that fateful year. She tried to explain bits and pieces when she was younger, but they dismissed it as a child’s wild imagination or particularly vivid dreams, and she’s not sure she can really blame them. After all, it hardly sounds believable.

She’s made some other friends at her new school, and they’re wonderful, but none of them get it, either. They don’t understand why she cringes every time they point out the tiny door that leads to nowhere when they come over to her house. They don’t understand why buttons and dolls disturb her to this day, or why when she looks at a snow globe, it always takes her a moment to register that there is nothing frightening inside of it. “Something happened to me when I was a kid,” she told them once, to allay their concerns. “It was really scary. I could’ve died. So if I ever do something...weird, that’s probably why.” None of them questioned her, then, when she bought that pocketknife. If nothing else, she’s grateful for that.

Wybie and his grandmother are the only ones she can actually talk to about what happened, and she’s not going to come to them every single time she has a paranoid thought (which is, unfortunately, fairly often). Usually she can calm herself down, anyway; she just has to take deep breaths and remind herself that the key is gone, at the bottom of a bottomless well, and the Beldam can never open that godforsaken portal ever again.

It takes lying there for another ten minutes, eyes closed and focusing on nothing but the sound of her own breathing, for Coraline to finally muster up the energy to pull herself out of bed. At least it’s a Friday, she tells herself. She has to work a bit this weekend, but her job involves more stocking shelves than interacting with other people, so it’s still better than school.

It’s not that she hates school. She likes learning when it’s interesting, and she likes seeing her friends. It’s not even that she dislikes other people, because she doesn’t, really. Even people she thought were weird or annoying at first, like Wybie, have grown on her with time. It’s just that she fears she’ll have a flashback or a panic attack in the middle of class and embarrass herself. It’s happened before—in middle school she was branded a freak when a sewing project in her home economics class brought her to tears for reasons she didn’t know how to explain. Strangely enough, she feels safer in her neighborhood. It’s an environment she knows well, and as odd as her neighbors are, she trusts them to protect her, even if they might not be aware of it. She remembers Mr. Bobinsky’s warning not to go through the little door, and she remembers the adder stone given to her by Misses Spink and Forcible—and, of course, she remembers Wybie, who once called her crazy before he saw the Beldam’s severed hand for himself, before he helped her dispose of the key for good. Technically, he’s the one who found the Coraline doll that spied on her in the first place—a fact that she hates him for on her worst days—but she knows that he had no idea, and it doesn’t do any good to blame him. After all, even if he may have inadvertently introduced Coraline to the Other Mother, he also helped to defeat her.

While Coraline is choosing her outfit for the day, her phone buzzes: a text from Wybie. Hey Jonesy, it reads, meet me outside then. I got something for ya.

Coraline raises an eyebrow. That could mean anything. Still, she sends him a quick Ok and slips her clothes on. If it happens to be a slug or something, at least she can say her day got off to an interesting start.

Being writers, her parents don’t have to wake up as early as she does, so Coraline usually fixes her own breakfast—often something quick, like a muffin—and heads out the door. Today is no exception, her meal a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. It sort of makes her feel like a kid again, in a good way. Sitting alone at the kitchen table, Cheerios in her spoon, the sun rising over the foggy mountains, a feeling of quiet peace and even innocence settles over her like dust on a bookshelf. In this moment, there is no fear, no nightmares, no flashbacks. In this moment, she is not a teenager doing her best to survive even while her mind begs to differ. She is the little girl she once was, before she was forced to be brave in the face of true horror. The sky glows pink and orange, a phenomenon unknown to the Other World. She’s grown to appreciate daylight more since then.

Finally, Coraline vaults her backpack over her shoulder and pushes the front door open, saying a silent goodbye to her parents in her head. Sure enough, at the bottom of the hill, leaning up against the Pink Palace sign, is Wybie, who looks like he’s playing a game on his phone. When he hears the sound of her footsteps, he looks up and waves to her.

“You’re back,” she says once she’s close enough to him to talk without having to shout. For the past two weeks, Wybie has been on a school trip to Germany. (Coraline couldn’t go because she’s taking Spanish instead of German.) It’s pretty stupid for them to get back on a Friday and then have to go to regular school for one day, in her opinion, but that’s just how it worked out. “You said you have something for me?” She can’t help but wonder if it’s a souvenir of some sort. She’d joked about him getting her one, but she didn’t actually expect him to do it.

“Yeah,” Wybie says. As they start to walk down the path that leads to town and their school, he pulls something small out of his jeans pocket, holding it in both hands so she can’t see what it is. His voice sounds strangely solemn. “So, you know how you said Miss Spink and Miss Forcible gave you that stone that one time? The one with the hole in the middle?”

Coraline remembers it well: the adder stone that helped her find the ghost children’s eyes all those years ago. When she read up about them later on, she found that rocks with naturally occurring holes in them, called adder stones or hag stones, are said to have magical properties. One of them is the ability to see through a witch or fairy’s disguises or traps, but others include the prevention of nightmares and curing whooping cough.

Coraline certainly doesn’t have whooping cough, but she does have nightmares, and she’s already seen the power of an adder stone for herself. “Yeah,” she says slowly. “They’re pretty rare. The Other Mother destroyed the one I had.”

Wybie flashes her a little half-smile and opens his palms, revealing a round, grayish stone with a medium-sized hole in it. “We visited the north coast one day,” he says as she takes it from him, “and I just happened to stumble across it. Apparently that’s one of the places where they’re more common, in northern Germany.” He shrugs. “I saw it, and I knew I had to give it to you. Not like you’ll need to find any more ghost children’s eyes, but…”

Coraline holds the stone up to her eye, feeling an odd comfort when she looks through the hole, even though nothing seems different. Feeling a soft smile spread across her face, she slips the stone into her pocket and says, “Thank you, Wybie.” Then, to lighten the mood, she adds, “I guess taking German was a good decision after all.”

Wybie blows a raspberry at her. “Hey, who got to go to a foreign country? Not you.”

They banter back and forth like that for a while, but part of Coraline is still focused on the stone in her pocket and the thoughtfulness behind it. It’s so small, but both the stone and the gesture give her the burst of courage she needs to get through the rest of the day, the week, the month. It’s a different kind of courage from what she had to muster up to stop the Beldam. It’s subtler, quieter. It’s the courage of a girl who has seen real ugliness, who has felt the deepest and most primal sort of fear, who went through hell and came out alive but unsure where to go from there. How do you keep on going when you’ve been face to face with death?

The answer, she realizes, is simple: it takes courage. It might be the kind that only a few people can see, but it’s courage all the same.

[mxstyassasxin]

Once Upon A December (G, 1.6k)

on AO3

Harry had been putting this off for months. The war had ended in May and, for a while, there was plenty to distract him while he regrouped at the Burrow with the Weasleys and Hermione. First, he’d been needed for pretty much every trial at the Wizengamot. He’d then helped McGonagall get Hogwarts ready for the beginning of the school year. Then, when Ginny and Hermione had gone back for their final year, he and Ron, along with Neville and a few others from the DA, had begun their Auror training. It was a hectic three months but then, once the day-to-day job began, it actually left quite a bit of downtime, unless they were on an active fieldwork case, of which they’d so far only had one. The rest of the time accounted for paperwork and patrols, witness interviews and interrogations as well as investigations that usually resulted in simple arrests if they didn’t have to be passed on to more senior Aurors.

Yet, even with most of his evenings and weekends free, he had not set a single foot inside Number 12, Grimmauld Place since the morning of their Polyjuice infiltration of the Ministry. The stupid, half-baked plan that went so awry that Ron ended up splinched and Grimmauld Place compromised.

It had taken a week of the Christmas break, with everyone back at the Burrow, for Hermione and Ginny to put their feet down. Harry and Ron had agreed that they were absolutely terrifying when they ganged up on them like that. But they understood, of course, because there were only so many times you could be walked in on with your girlfriend by one, or both, of your best friends – one of whom happened to be your girlfriend’s brother. Or, in Ron’s case, being walked in on by your best mate and your sister.

And so it was, that two days prior to Christmas Eve, Harry stepped back into Number 12 Grimmauld Place. He was accompanied by the majority of the clan, obviously - Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Arthur and George. Neville and Luna even joined them, although Harry suspected that their sense of friendship was also accompanied by a curiosity about the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

The portrait of Sirius’ mother was still present and shrieking on the hallway wall but ended up having a rather confusingly pleasant conversation with Luna. At one point in the morning, Harry found Neville sat on the threadbare carpet in the drawing room, staring at the Black Family Tree covering the walls.

“Nev? You alright there?”

“Yeah… Yeah. Did you know it had updated? I should have known it would because my Gran’s does the same.”

“What do you mean?”

Neville pointed at a spot on the wall. “That’s where you should be, as Sirius’ chosen heir. There’s a place on there, ready for you if you wanted to restore it properly.”

Sure enough, there, beneath the scorch mark that Sirius had pointed out to him, was a new portrait frame, stitched with golden thread. Harry stared at it silently for a while, imagining his face in that golden frame surrounded by the faces of Black after Black after Black. Slytherin to a fault until Sirius came along. His image would sit beside Malfoy’s, but, if he restored it as Neville said he could, then it would also sit alongside Teddy and Tonks, as well as Remus by marriage. It would be a brand-new start. Those who have been and gone, framed in silver, while those who remain to change the fate of the Black lineage, framed in gold. Andromeda, Narcissa, Draco, Teddy and him. Harry.

He turned on his heel and left Neville behind in the room, failing to see or hear anything besides his feet on the crooked floorboards, only looking up when they came to a halt in front of the door he recognised as Sirius’ room. He reached a hand out, holding his palm an inch away from the mottled wood, unsure whether he should, or even whether he could. But, inhaling deeply, he made contact with the door, and it swung inwards under his touch. As soon as he stepped across the threshold, the heavy drapes at the window swept open, illuminating the dust floating around the room.

He sank down into the armchair in the corner, facing the Gryffindor-themed bed, and hung his head between his knees, hands clasped at the back of his neck. This was exactly why he had been putting off fully acknowledging his inheritance. Kreacher was still at Hogwarts, so he was one less issue to resolve, but the ownership of a magical house that had been keyed into a different lineage for centuries? He didn’t need Hermione to tell him that taking it on was going to get complicated. Especially when there were other heirs, blood heirs, that he would want to recognise. And with that, he knew he would have to get Gringotts involved, and the Goblins definitely still hated him. He was sure many of them would wish him dead if they could. But he would have no hope in navigating the various Black vaults without their assistance.

As he lifted his head to roll the stress out of his neck, he caught the light glinting on something underneath the bed. Curious, he sank out of the chair and onto his knees, crawling on all fours until he was able to reach the metallic object and pull it out to study it.

It was some sort of silver chest, the metal hammered meticulously to decorate the sides and the curved lid. On the top of the lid it had been formed into a lion’s head, complete with fierce mane and teeth. There were feet attached to the base of the small chest as well. One paw in each corner. It was small enough to sit safely on his lap while he lifted the lid open, a familiar soft, silvery glow bathing his face as the pensive inside was revealed.

He didn’t know what possessed him, whether it was the fact that the chest was moulded into a lion, or that it had been beneath Sirius’ bed, but Harry lifted the chest onto the bed and dropped his face into the swirling memories.

“What am I meant to be saying, Padfoot. He’s your Godson.”

Harry found himself looking at Remus as he had been during Harry’s fifth year, permanently furrowed brow included.

“Yes, but it’s my memory.”

“Then why the hell don’t we just do this in front of a mirror.”

“Oh right. This is why you were always the brains, Moony.”

The image shifted slightly so that he was looking at a reflection of Remus and Sirius stood side by side.

“Harry, I know you’re probably wondering what’s going on, but I’ve set in place the motions to make you my heir should anything happen to me.”

“Which it won’t, Padfoot because you’re going to be careful.”

“Right, Moony. But, just in case, you’ll have found this Pensive hidden in my room. Hopefully once everything is over.”

“We’ve put a few of our memories in it for you, Harry. I was shocked at how little you knew of your parents when I taught you in your third year. So here are our memories, for you to view whenever you please, if for some reason we don’t make it and can’t tell you the stories ourselves in calmer times.”

“We love you, Harry. Always remember that.”

Harry yanked his head out of the Pensive before the next memory could begin automatically, wiping away the tears that were already streaming down his face. He didn’t know if he was ready for this. But then again, he didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for this.

Taking a few deep breaths, he returned to the memories that Remus and Sirius had left him, the silver strands swirling around him until he landed in an unfamiliar living room decorated for Christmas.

The first people he saw were Sirius and his father lounging on the sofa in front of him, watching something behind where Harry had landed. He fixated on the happiness shining all over his dad’s face for a moment, the love in the glint of his eyes telling Harry that it was his mother who stood behind him. And, sure enough, when he turned away from his dad, there was his mother, Lily, the lights from the Christmas tree bouncing off her fiery red hair.

As she spun around, swaying to the Christmas carol she was humming, Harry realised that she was holding him in her arms. A tiny, baby Harry, all rosy cheeks and huge smile. Wide, green eyes staring up in awe at his mother as she sang and swayed with him to the tune.

He was witnessing the only Christmas they had been able to have as a family and it looked as though it had been so happy. The living room in the house at Godric’s Hollow was so full of joy despite the threats that lay outside these four walls thanks to the war raging around them. Harry wondered if they knew already that they would all get so caught up in it. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus. His family. Those who had always loved him and those who would be there with him at the end of it all.

He stayed as long as he possibly could in that memory, watching his mother sway to Christmas carols that she sang to him where he lay in her arms, the brightly decorated tree blinking behind her.

This time, to this memory, for the first time in months, he let his tears flow freely.

[qm-vox]

Everything The Light Touches - The Heartless Giant & The Glass Mountain

You know this story. It’s Winter - isn’t it always Winter? - and the night is dark and cold. Our Intrepid Heroine has run away from home. Why doesn’t matter; maybe her father yelled at her, or she’s had another argument with her mother. Maybe it’s not home she’s run away from, but a boy’s house (or a girl’s; dying cold and alone in the hard Winter is a tale as old as time, after all). Perhaps she ran away a long time ago, and this is not her first long, dark Winter. And someone says:

“I know somewhere bright and warm to stay.”

Someone more skittish, more cautious, someone not as cold and alone, would not take the stranger’s hand, but Our Heroine is Intrepid, and she does. And the stranger is as good as her word. It’s always bright and warm in the Glass Mountain.

The thing left behind to freeze in Our Heroine’s place dies, sometimes, becoming the latest matchstick girl discovered lost in the snow on some sad Christmas morning. You know this story, after all.

But not how it ends.

The Master - The Heartless Giant

Most of His slaves wish they could forget the Heartless Giant, but few ever do; whatever else their Homecoming erases from their mind, the image of the looming Giant remains seared into their minds and stalks their dreams. He is hideous amongst the Fae, looming nearly eighteen feet tall and clad in armor made from guttering, metallic light snatched from dying candles, broken bulbs, sputtering coals, and the eyes of dead men, which casts more shadow than light and makes the scabbed rashes that crawl over the Giant’s exposed flesh seem like rippling scales. Mismatched teeth, wrenched from the mouths of those who dared speak ill of Him, crowd the Giant’s mouth and drip with saliva constantly refreshed by His panting, too-long tongue.

A hole is there in the Giant’s armor, right where his heart should go at the front and the back. There is only a terrible Darkness there, which no light can illuminate. Those who challenge the Heartless Giant to battle and do not fall before His massive glass shield (studded with sharpened finger bones, each taken from a thief slain in the burning Glass Mountain) are snatched up in the Giant’s hand and crammed into His heart-hole. The lucky die; others crawl forth as miserable Darklings, emptied and cored, and are turned loose to stagger towards the mortal realms as best they can. Most will never make it.

The Heartless Giant covets beauty, glory, and light, but despises the work necessary to acquire it, and so He bends His energy to acquiring slaves that can forge these things in His name. Rarely does the Giant bother to snatch victims with His own calloused hands; squads of loyalists with His brand over what’s left of their hearts flit to and from the mortal realms with orders from the Giant clutched in their hands. There are many roles to fill in the Glass Mountain; the Giant requires guards, treasures human and post-human pets as adornments for His throne room, and needs artists, smiths, glaziers, engineers, and dreamers to forge new treasures for His vaults, for His hoards, and even, at times, to sell to others among the Fae. While most of His time is spent on His throne, idling away hours simply staring at the light of His own domain, the Heartless Giant trusts nothing and no one with the tally of His hoard, and counts each bauble, slag-glass coin, and fractured beam of light by hand when the mood strikes Him. He also puts the finishing touches on each and every Fetch forged in the Glass Mountain, ensuring that they will live half-lives as miserable and bleak as their originals are now condemned to.

The Land - The Glass Mountain

The Glass Mountain that is fortress, factory, and vault for the Heartless Giant sits beneath an endless land of Night in which other Fae and fae creatures prowl, politic, and prey on one another. Other Gentry sometimes try to breach the Mountain’s defenses, but few even go near it; its crystal-clear walls shine forth with flickering, strobing lights in all colors, sometimes warm like a forge, and other times strobing so brightly as to boil mortal eyes from their skulls if they aren’t shut in time. There is no obvious passage into the Glass Mountain, and its secret ways are guarded by the Heartless Giant’s fiercest slaves.

Those who escape the Glass Mountain have nightmares of being lost in invisible halls cut through with searing light and color. The bottomless foundries, workshops, weaving-rooms, forges, and sweatshops that burst with the Giant’s slaves (some still human, many anything but these days) shed heat into the Mountain and the endless Night outside, and the air twists and smokes but never quite ignites as a result. It’s all too easy to get lost in the twisting, identical hallways and end up hunted down by the Giant’s Changeling guards that blend in with the light and color of His domain. Sounds, too, move through the entirety of the Glass Mountain, and the constant noise of toil is sometimes cut through by the screams of those who have displeased their new master, or who must be adjusted to survive life in the Mountain.

Escape can be difficult. The Mountain does not connect to the Hedge directly, so the first challenge of any Lost that seeks their Homecoming is to exit it into the light-slashed Night without. Some hide among shipments of unfinished Fetches (waiting only the thin strips of shadow that will give them life, provided by the clients who hire the Giant’s slaves to make the simulacra), while others flee from work details on the surface of the Glass Mountain. Sometimes, though, the Giant simply turns one of the Lost loose, walking them through the Night outside and gently setting them down on the path leading home. These unfortunates learn far too late that the Heartless Giant delights in cruelty, and return home to ruin and sorrow.

The Brave and the Broken - Lost of the Glass Mountain

Lost of many Seemings emerge from the Glass Mountain, under their own power or as the terrified loyalists which serve the Heartless Giant, but there are trends. Darklings are somewhat common to make, coming as they do from brave heroes who try to oppose their oppressor, but they only rarely survive the resulting journey home; of those that do, some absorb the essence of the Mountain itself and stagger back as Mirrorskins that shed an oddly bright and hollow light (accenting the shadows near them rather than illuminating them), while others croak desperate deals with buckets of discarded glass and claw, at last, into the mortals realms as Razorhands with feathery glass hair and fingers with too many joints.

Wizened of many stripes are common to the Glass Mountain; alchemic Brewers charged with making dyes or brewing drinks to sustain the multitudes of workers, Artists with glass dust ground into skin that won’t stop bleeding, Drudges with cloths of woven metal that polish and clean and scrape the Mountain to a spotless shine, skittish Authors with stained glass manacles that pierce through their wrists or necks, made to write the poems exalting the Giant or flattering His allies. Some remember having authority, or something like it, in the Glass Mountain; the Wizened serve as project leaders for the beautiful things the Giant covets, and wield glass-tipped whips against His captive hobgoblins and mortals to ensure that high standards can be pushed ever-higher. Those who grow addicted to this power almost never escape.

Those the Heartless Giant keeps as His personal pets tend to become His Fairest and the few Beasts that emerge from the Glass Mountain, turned into decorations and bodyguards all at once. The Fairest come home with hazy memories of twin swords made all of glass with a rising light pinned within the blades, and some manage to make it home with the actual weapons themselves, while the Beasts usually remember little other than cages of glass and gold, and scraps of flesh burnt to cinders. Treasured and Polychromatics are the most common Fairest to rise within the cursed light of the Glass Mountain, but some individuals instead emerge as Dancers, Flamesirens, or Romancers. Those Beasts who survive are almost invariably Truefriends, though rumors of glittering birds with feathers made of precious gems - Windwings - sometimes reach the ears of the Giant’s escaped slaves.

Ogres are shockingly rare in the Glass Mountain, and mostly made on purpose; they haul great loads of molten glass or precious metals, or beat new tunnels into the groaning earth with their bare fists despite the cracking and shattering of their living arms. Even then, many who could become Ogres instead end up as one of the Giant’s many Elemental slaves, given that their master practices transformation rather than medicine. Those who survive and escape have a bitter force of will and an ironclad sense of self-identity that carries them far in the mortal realms. Gristlegrinders with maws of glass teeth and a habit of taking bites out of stone or metal, Stonebones who became harder than their labors, Gargantuans changed from stealing the meat and drink of the Giant himself, and riddling Trolls set as traps inside of the Heartless Giant’s bottomless vaults all come roaring free of the Glass Mountain to rest, flesh steaming from heat, in the mortal lands again. Many have all-glass prosthetics of surprising flexibility.

Fireheart Elementals rival all of the Wizened for population of the Glass Mountain; the Heartless Giant’s guards, torturers, and soldiers have their flesh melted off and replaced by glass that encases their living organs, and when they fail Him something else is extracted and replaced with glass (these, too, dream of the blades the Giant gives them, and some few emerge with broken fingers still clutched around the hilts of razor-thin spathas made of stained glass which follow them into their dreams at night). Others are (re)born when a terrible accident happens in the forges and foundries and they become encased in molten glass, gold, silver, or even boiling water - they go leaping free, spared by some strange Arcadian whim, and smash their way out of the Mountain with stunning violence. Desperate slaves, more cunning than some of their peers, strike up a rapport with the elements of the Glass Mountain as they master the first inklings of Pledge and Contract, and some few Waterborn, Metalflesh, and Earthbones are forged this way, so out of place against the clear, glowing colors of their peers. Blightbents are thrown from the Mountain on a regular basis to fend for themselves in the endless Night outside. Some break back in to rescue others, and even succeed at times; most stagger back home with blackened lungs, runny eyes, and hands that drip with boiling waste materials and scorching chemicals to try and make the best of the lives the Giant has ruined.

The Motley Crew - Sample Lost

Rainbow John was a middle-class boy with a flair for the dramatic and a keen aesthetic eye. During his freshman year at college he made the mistake of falling for a bad girl who turned out to be a hell of a lot worse than he signed up for; she sold him to the Heartless Giant for another season of freedom in the mortal realms, and John became one of the Glass Mountain’s many Fairest decorations. John flirted with death for his entire Durance, keeping something resembling his sanity through sheer rage, cussedness, and rebellion, even as the Giant had his errant pet tortured, infected with living colors that whispered in his mind during quiet moments, melted the fat from his flesh over fires, and finally locked him away in a private cell - the moment John needed to break his way through the lock, steal his blades, and light out for the mortal realms with memories of home and a bright, kaleidoscopic rage leading the way.

The story of Colors Eriksdotter isn’t unusual for the Glass Mountain. The teenage daughter of a single father, Colors ran away from home after an argument with her father over his new girlfriend and accepted an offer to go somewhere warm and bright. Reforged to serve as one of the Heartless Giant’s Fireheart guards, Colors performed admirably in her duties until a moment of clarity shook her enough to break out and flee back to the mortal realms. She’s still struggling with violence-first solutions to her problems.

Jazz O’Brien fucked up. She fucked up so bad. Desperate to go home, she took a pact with the Giant - if she could survive the Darkness in his body, she could go home in His name and remain there as His servant. The Darkness turned her into a Mirrorskin Darkling, and the Giant’s twisted games have made her a slave in her own home. At first, Jazz was almost happy to kidnap her former bullies and rivals, but now those bullies and rivals are Fetches, and they serve as Jazz’s jailers. This wasn’t an exit, and now she doesn’t have a way back out.

Max of No House has a thing for windows. An Artist by nature and by profession, their memories of their Durance are blessedly(?) absent. Instead, they’ve taken like a moth to flame to a campaign of secretive graffiti, window art, and stealthily placed sculpture, reveling in the contrast of fame and anonymity it offers. The only trouble is their Court expects tithes, and the last time anyone asked Max to take a paying job that person got stabbed with a glass shard.

[wo-the-wolf]

The Revenant’s Shield and Sword, Part 3

“When they burned my world. . . I looked up at the stars that night from the ship we lay imprisoned in. Shackled like a beast and gripping the hand of my beloved as we mourned our little one. . . They told us we were at fault for hiding insurgents, yet across our now ashen home laid the propaganda they fed us, the drink we so greedily swallowed. I served time and time again in doing the unthinkable for my people. For every great leader preaches what they do, for every organization preaches that they give justice, for every great person preaches they are moral and wise, yet they all have hands that do their dirty work. It’s easy, to watch as atrocities are committed and say they shouldn’t, yet I responded to them. I saved lives just as I took them, I built homes and tore them apart, I created a family and have sundered others. Throughout it I claimed to my old Gods that I was honor-bound, that I served with conviction and was a tool of justice and hope. Yet when I slept that night behind cell bars with my wife, when I looked out the glass at my stars leaving me . . . I felt cold. An illusion of a man stared back at me, but his eyes were that of a Demon seeing itself for the first time. My eyes watched the fires of the planet continue, and they have not stopped seeing that again every night. They burned my world. . . They burned my home. Now that our enemies are gone . . . I will simply travel.” -Journal entry Dated 2268, August 12th. Taken from Derrick Jormun Ishmael’s personal logs. Regarding the beginning of his transfer to Project Black Monarch.

Investigation status: ...... Pending.

Status of Witnesses: ....... Unknwon

Status of Criminal in question: ..... Deceased 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Emma’s breathing was shallow, her armor breached as multiple bullet holes were showing themselves from her legs to her torso, and even a few on her arms. There she lay against a cave wall, surrounded by near total darkness. Derrick hastily caught his breath as he shifted through their supplies and attempted to patch her wounds. “I suppose,” he coughed before breaking out the medical kit, “That now is a bad time to say I was right?” 

Emma glared and gritted her teeth, “You . . . You shot Kyle you bastard.”

“Yes, yes, I shot Kyle, let’s ignore the fact he shot you and then shot me first. After of course the fact that he brutally killed his Monarch who tried to defend us. Silvia was such a beauty too, oh,” he looked off to the side and clicked his tongue in disappointment, “Such a terrible way to go.”He continued to tend to her wounds, getting the bullets out and stopping the bleeding. After an hour or so of work, she was finally stabilized, but in oh such terrible condition. “There we are, see? Good as new!” She glared at him. “Well.... New in the sense of it was only manhandled by a toddler with a machine gun.”

“You . . . Why do they want you?” She struggled to sit up and gasped for breathe, struggling still as he gave her his canteen. “Why,” she grumbled as she took the water. 

“Because of my dashing good looks and hidden vault of virgins and riches,” he waved his hand about as he spoke sarcastically.

“Answer me,” she growled, “Or I’ll put you in a shallow grave.”

“I stole something from Director Wolf.”

“What could be so important it was worth our lives?!” She growled louder. 

“Calm yourself. . . Speak any louder and they’ll surely find us. . . I stole everything. His plans for the future, his records of every bad deal, the war crimes he had us commit in our own personal lives before this program. I stole everything . . . With this,” he tapped his head. “Project Monarch . . . Surgically implanted AI into our heads. If anything, we are AI’s ourselves now, still ourselves. We were made to be the perfect killing think tank. The morality of man, mixed with the processing power of AI. It has it’s own little personality we were. . . Matched with you could say. We became one being, and were field tested here and anywhere else to slaughter, steal, and now assist our partnered Sentinels in their own wars. Who do you think he tested us on? Every other species. . . Everyone else. He tore our minds apart and forced us to fight. But if you don’t believe me,” he handed her helmet back to her, “See for yourself.”

Emma was distrustful, she spat at his feet before taking his helmet, “You’ve got nothing. . . You can try to prove your point,” he scoffed as she put her helmet back on. What transpired next took her breathe away. The Director and her Sargent, watching the torture of the candidates for Black Monarch. Forcing them to execute prisoners, forcing them to fight each other, forcing them to solve complex puzzles and algorithms or face more torture. Documents, security cam footage, everything was there. “What . . . What is this?” She stuttered as she saw the next file. Project Horsemen. 

“Project Horsemen. . . You Sentinels and us Monarchs would be forced to fight to the death, the last standing of us would further be twisted and made monsters. Monsters shackled in the mind and given no free will. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, his Apocalypse. It’s all there.” Derrick gestured as all was shown in her HUD. “It’s all there. . . If you don’t believe me then so be it. I’ll patch you up and head off on my own. They’ve no reason to think you’ve done anything than be taken my prisoner.” He shrugged. 

“This,” Emma took it all in. The experiments, the footage, the plans and written documents from the Director’s inner circle. Everything pointed towards the most vile of intentions. “This could cripple any diplomacy we have with any other race in the galaxy. The Venra alone would love to use this as an excuse to start yet another war.” She was stricken, utterly baffled at the sheer ferocity of these experiments. “I guess I see why other races fear us . . . We disregard even our own people by claiming it’s for our version of the greater good.” She blinked, still processing everything before something glowed on her HUD. “How did you get into Black Monarch?” She asked as her eyes caught sight of files named after all of the Monarchs and Sentinels. 

“The file says it all, I’m a walking document of how best to be branded a monster in the Terran Republic.” He folded his arms as he leaned back.

“So it’s true?”

“No. . . No,” he closed his eyes, the screams he had always heard softened for but a moment. “A long time ago I was a solider, an infiltrator if you will. I wanted to be an actor, but I got the calling. My people needed me, and I enlisted. Rose up through the ranks and the special units all over. Finally when I had returned for some much needed rest and connect with my beloved wife again . . . The Republic came in private military ships, and scorched my home world. They took the survivors hostage, but not before gunning down my little one.” There was age in his voice. As if a thousand years of pain had settled not hundreds of years past. Now it was only an echo. A memory. His eyes become foggy as his mind filled with the sound of children laughing, the warmth of his beloved near him as he remembered the feeling of holding her. “They took everything . . . I was so lost I simply wandered. Black Monarch gave me a chance to start over. When it was done I searched everywhere, only to discover she died in their torture solely to feed this research. My friends, my family, all but burned so they could make things like you and I, Emma.” He looked up at her. There was no mischief in his eyes. No lying, no tales spooling in his head like fine thread. There was only memory.

“All those people they had us kill during Operations . . . Terrorists . . . Smugglers, arms dealers, drug lords, rebels. . . They were just,” she felt sick to her stomach reading the reports. 

“Director Wolf’s rivals for his own arms dealings. The peace protesters who stood against him . . . Against the war. Everyone that stood in their way has burned by our hands.”

“You . . . You tried to warn us,” she stared down at her hand again. In her eyes there was so much blood. . . So much blood that she felt the weight of it crushing her lungs. She butchered innocents. Their screams were not that of traitors. . . They were people. Her mind became sickened. “What. . . What have I done?” She stuttered. 

Derrick went and sat next to her, reaching up to place a hand on her shoulder, “Hush . . . You’ve done nothing. You followed your path and went the wrong way, no matter how far your walk or run or crawl, it’s never too late to break off and make a new trail.” He gazed outside the cave mouth at the beautiful sky before them on this xeno-world. “My path branches towards killing Director Wolf, and letting my beloved rest easy. . . Then . . . Then I’m not sure.”

“I . . . I want to leave.” She stated as she gripped her head safely tucked in her helmet. “I don’t want to kill anymore . . . Please, help me.”

“Help? Ha,” he chuckled weakly, “No one in their right mind would dare try to stop you if they saw you. You can easily leave this world, steal our old comrade’s ship and go far, far, far away.”

“No, no more killing. . . Director Wolf did terrible things. . . But for now I don’t want to kill him . . . I want you to come with me . . . Help me do good in the galaxy. Help me, and I will help you.”

“Oh? Help me?” He raised his brow tiredly.

“I . . . I mean,” she sighed as she collected her thoughts, “Just . . . No more needless violence, please,” she shook her head in her hands, terrified of what she had done.

Derrick was about to speak, when something flicked in his head. ‘Your days as a killer are finally over?’ asked a sweet and warm voice. The smell of Mint filled the air as he saw the fiery red hair flash in his mind. He promised. He swore, that his days of going out of his way for bloodshed was over. No more gang violence as a teenager, no more executions as a soldier, no more assassinations of innocents as a Special Operations unit, no more needless killing. Only when needed, to protect people. He swore, swore to her when he came home, and swore to her as he held her corpse for three days and three nights. For once, he was unable to speak. Emma looked down towards him, as even sitting she was still much larger. “I,” he paused. The eyes of the Demon looked back at him through her reflective visor. They were eyes of hunger, they begged for more carnage, as it was all he knew. 

“Derrick?” Emma inquired curiously, as she was so use to his quick tongue.

Derrick sighed, “You . . . Reminded me of some words I need to follow. . . Very well. I cannot stop killing, but I can at least only kill when we need to protect ourselves or others. Agreed?”

Emma thought for a minute and nodded, “I guess that’s ok . . . But I don’t want to kill anymore. . . I can’t do it anymore,” she shook her head. 

“Good. . . Now when you hear the sound of gunfire and screaming get up and move down the mountain to that clearing below us.” Derrick smiled as he rose to his feet. 

“What now?” She shook her head and looked slightly up at him. 

“I’m gonna go steal their shuttle and get us the hell out of here.” He grinned. 

“Are you mad?! They’ll kill you!”

“I was an infiltrator remember? Best on the job, I can sneak by anyone and anything, but once I get moving they’ll open fire for sure. So be ready.” He grinned before heading off. 

“H-Hey! Wait!” Emma gripped her side painfully as it was still quite soar. “Damn it,” she grumbled. 

It was several hours, but soon the shuttle did come. They escaped, true to his word none of her squad had perished. Together Derrick and Emma went into hiding all across the galaxy, traveling and using their respective skills to earn a living. Derrick never knew if vengeance would come his way, but he thought that maybe his new promise was misplaced. Perhaps his ghosts were laying at rest, and he was the only one digging them back up. Who knows? Maybe Director Wolf would face justice at the end of a gun barrel. 

But that . . . Is a story for another time.  END --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEY YOU! How’s it going? It was a pleasure to work on this arch of the short stories I’m doing this to pass time during my last year of university. Once again don’t forget, if you have any prompts you want me to work on just send me them, tag me in them, anything at all! I will put them in the que if I like em! All my stories are connected so never fear, old characters will always come back! Until next time, Fly safe fellow Explorer’s of the unknown. On an extra note, your comments, messages, and asks are always appreciated and read, plus almost always answered ^w^ thanks again!

[jokermatt]

Vworp! Vworp? Click-bait of course – we all know the Doctor Who experience will never end! Still though, in one corner of Cardiff Bay, it has.

The BBC’s Doctor Who Experience closed this weekend, ending the fourth permanent, but significant exhibition in the world’s longest running science fiction show’s history. A permanent exhibit to the corporation’s premier franchise that’s suddenly become a whole lot ephemeral. But just as its creation was made possible by the show’s huge resurgence in the middle of last decade, as much as the rise of ‘experience’ entertainment, its demise doesn’t signal the end of Doctor Who‘s so-far 54-year journey.

There’s no doubt that Doctor’s Who‘s lost some of the sheen it recovered 12 years ago, just as it waxed and waned over the 26 years of its original run. After its 2005 return, kids were talking about that weekend’s show on the bus to school on a Monday morning, for the first time in decades. Those kids of 9 or 10 are now 21 and 22. Times change, even for an ever-changing show like Doctor Who. Audiences change along with their Doctors. And so do Doctor Who exhibitions.

The Past

The first permanent exhibition to Doctor Who was set up at the seat of the Marquesses of Bath, the stately Longleat. Alongside the growing safari. It set the standard walk-through of costumes, props and exhibit cards that were as close to an immersion that young and old fans could get, whilst ocassionally hosting some events, like the 20th anniversary party in 1983. Longleat was big on those big anniversaries, running from 1973 until 2003, and was my first visit to a Whobition – a word I will never use again.

Like Behind the Sofa at London’s defunct Museum of Moving Image, which I visited during thatsame mid-1990s period, my strongest memories remain, in no particular order, Daleks and the blister packed Dapol models in the shop afterwards. Count them down: Seventh Doctor, Tetrap, Mel… It’s worth noting that my few brushes with Doctor Who as a child it bloody petrified me. Being scared is a great thing. My first memory – although it may appeal to some fans – is Colin Baker land-drowning at the cliffhanger of the penultimate episode of The Trial of  Time Lord. I grew up on the coast, but not near hand quick-hand-sand.

Along the South Coast, Brighton’s Palace Pier (the only one left, horizontal) hosted a small, but prestigious and official exhibition in 2005. The lean years of the show’s prolonged hiatus between 1989 and 2005 had been partially bridged by Longleat and the resurgent Blackpool exhibition. originally open as a permanent installation from 1974 to 1985, that Golden Mile exhibition folded in 1985 not for a regeneration but a “re-evalutation”, coincidentally during the show’s 18-month mid-80s hiatus. Its second life ran from 2004 to just before the show’s anniversary in 2009 – but I never made it to either incarnation.

Back to Dapol, the factory that gave us those distinctive 1980s action action figures, enabling children everywhere to recreate Time and the Rani,  hosted is own exhibition, Dapol Dr Who Experience, between 1994 and 2003 in Llangollen. I never made it to that either, although the figures persist.

In 2008, with the show at peak Tennant and its fourth television series since returning, a well put together show was hosted at Earls Court Exhibition Centre for just under a year. Never intended as permanent, coincidentally that ended in the year of Specials – a hiatus by any other name.

Then in 2011, London Olympia2 hosted the brand new Experience, a new interactive development of the old props and history format. It ran for one year, before relocating to Cardiff to replace the semi-permanent Doctor Who Exhibition Cardiff that at the capital’s Red Dragon Centre that ran between 2005 and 2011. The London Experience was a whole different level. While it ended with a comprehensive tour of props, costumes and merchandise, the main draw was the interactive storyline that dragged willing family groups through a ready-made storyline, combining pre-recorded film with the Doctor himself, animated sets, classic monsters and a ground-breaking 3d segment that recalled early IMAX trips to that new dimension.

Of course, it was all helped by marvelous zeitgeist. It opened in the prime of the new series’ first reboot, with the arrival of the Eleventh Doctor, tying directly into storylines set out by the show’s fifth series and picking up from the three-dimensional vortex promos that accompanied that new era. But as well-knitted into the fabric of the show as it was, enhancing the immersion, it was always going to be the dating element. As the ‘cracks in time’device that effectively brought us into the show collapsed into a tangle of on-screen plotting over inconsistently broadcast series, it became a piece of historical interest far more quickly than the old exhibits ever had. As with many of the new era exhibitions, items would arrive as series were made, disappearing as they were recalled. it was a natural rhythm, when the series ran consistently.

In summer 2012 the Experience opened in Cardiff Bay, in a new 3,000 sq m building at Porth Teigr, handily near to the BBC’s Roath Lock studios, where Doctor Who is produced, aiding the ins and outs of props. Expected to attract up to 250,000 visitors a year, it was hailed as a further coup for the Cardiff Bay development and a further boost for the clocal economy delivered by temporal rift. I visited that incarnation of the Experience once at its opening in London, then in Cardiff, accompanied by, after a rain-soaked run, a trip around the TARDIS studio itself.

And then last month I took a trip to Cardiff for one final, sign-off visit to the Experience.

The Present

With the arrival of the Twelfth Doctor, the dated crack in time plot was deemed just that bit too passé. That earlier trip had served up some nice moments in its guided urgency, not least a trip into the off-screen Dalek civil war which went just a little way to explain the quick repealling of the multi-coloured New Paradigm Daleks in the show. As of 2014, a new storyline written by Joe Lidster brought things up to the Twelfth Doctor, making use of some sets – anachronistically the early Eleventh Doctor TARDIS remained – and twisting the scripted journey, spattered with some great scripting, but lacking the buzz of the television linked original, into a new shape.

As fun as it was – if you ever think it isn’t amazing, picture that desolate ’90s hole when the show’s fire was tended by a mere few thousand fans – there remains something wonderfully BBC about it all. The concept, not as strong in the Capaldi era as the former Smith Experience, was a little tattered around the edges come the end, the staff almost imperceptibly haggard. Camera phones are forbidden on the journey, but there was surely a day when enforcing that rule fell into the concept.

the Experience should haev soared to the end, but that seldom happens in Who. Like the show itself, 12 years on from its glorious resurgence. A trail traipsing between Angels lacked bite, the visit to the underside of the TARDIS was missing some sparkle (really, because it recalls the awful Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS). There was nothing to match the Dalek fighting in the first, but the pepper pots gave it a go, as we sought suspiciously kryptonion shards that could sort the merry temporal mess out. Perhaps the highlight lay in the past. While the 3d finale wasn’t as captivating and centre-stage as the previous version, it ended on Totter’s Lane, where the story began. There it broke through into the exhibition, with the TARDIS set and production notes of 1963, brought to screen for the 50th anniversary with An Adventure in Time and Space.

As Steven Moffat always propounds, a little too much, Doctor Who‘s a show about change. And time for change it is. So the Experience ends with its second and final Doctor. Concept experiences remain strong, perhaps stronger now than when it opened – certainly in London. In Cardiff, although filled by the promotion surrounding its final summer, its shelf-life is apparent. A root around the Experience merchandise shop, highlighted it. Pride of place fell to the new Mr Men tie-in range, but everything else felt flat and familiar. It’s a luxury for the brand, where every T-shirt, DVD and mug once gleamed new.

The trick remains in the exhibition that follows the tour, wonderful, expansive and still continually updating, it’s a far cry from the crawl past zygons and krynoids at Longleat or through Cassandra on Brighton Pier. The fad for the Experience is likely to stick and develop. Doctor Who and BBC Worldwide will return to the theme. But as contrary and awkward as the show it celebrates, it’s the exhibition that retains the ageless class. And unlike the walkthrough, it’s a photographers’ dream. I’ll miss these unscripted trips tothe past. Until the next time. The next Experience.

The Gallery

Out of the Vault

Ring upgrade

Bakers hands

Angel Power

Mummy shake

Morbius claw

Cyber heads

Cyber legion

War Doctor TARDIS

Console

Clara memorial

Recreating The Leisure Hive

Sleepy

Hanging Silents

Mr Sweet

Classic Daleks

Classic Daleks

New Paradigm Daleks

Bloody Monks

New Mondas

Emperor Davros

New Davros

Season 18 Console

Facing the Raven

Special Weapons

Exterminate?

Blue cat future

Console

Blue doors

Console room mood

HDoctor Who Experience – hello Menoptera!ello Menoptera!

Invasion of Earth

The Beginning

The News 23 November 1963

Out of the Vault

Ring upgrade

Bakers hands

Angel Power

Mummy shake

Morbius claw

Cyber heads

Cyber legion

War Doctor TARDIS

Console

Clara memorial

Recreating The Leisure Hive

Sleepy

Hanging Silents

Mr Sweet

Classic Daleks

Classic Daleks

New Paradigm Daleks

Bloody Monks

New Mondas

Emperor Davros

New Davros

Season 18 Console

Facing the Raven

Special Weapons

Exterminate?

Blue cat future

Console

Blue doors

Console room mood

HDoctor Who Experience – hello Menoptera!ello Menoptera!

Invasion of Earth

The Beginning

The News 23 November 1963

Doctor Who: End of the Experience Vworp! Vworp? Click-bait of course - we all know the Doctor Who experience will never end! Still though, in one corner of Cardiff Bay, it has.

[ageofdragon]

A Triad of Reason

I mentioned a Anders/M!Hawke/Isabela fluff piece A WHILE back, emphasis on Bela/Anders because no one ever does.

Also no promises, it’s been sometime since I last wrote seriously.

Anders sighed and laid his head down on his rickety desk, the wood knocked and rocked beneath him. The deep breath of dank, stale, fetid air, was regrettably his first chance to breathe.

He could feel the thumping of his heart against the wall of his head, bringing a headache he was far too tired to wash away.

From dawn to dusk he whittled away some of the pain and misfortune in Darktown, yet it was never enough. Some orphaned child still cried from the dark, some poor person would arrive tomorrow worked over with knives for a single piece of bread, and some frantic mage would scuttle in afraid and alone in need of a way out.

Kirkwall seemed so far gone, as if the city itself was a limb gone septic. It hardly seemed worth saving some days, when cutting it away from Thedas appeared safer and more beneficial for all. Anders wasn’t going to give up though, the cold heat stirred in his chest and mind with agreement. They would fight to see justice still stood, in a world where justice was a rare luxury for the caged and captured.

Anders didn’t know how long he drifted, but closing his last thought he noticed the drag of fingers through his hair. Strands pulled back and twisted.

“Are...are you braiding my hair?” Anders voice muffled beneath the fold of his arms.

“What do you think, sweet thing? Almost done too.” Her Rivaini laugh rolled over him and he felt himself smile. Muscles he hadn’t even realized he had tensed, unwinding at her teasing.

“What time is it, Isabela?” Anders asked, relaxing further as her hands trailed from what he assumed was a finished braid to his shoulders. Precise fingers dug into bundled nerves and worked them loose with a welcomed roughness.

“Time for dinner, stew I think. Something for the cold.” Isabela paused as Anders groaned beneath her touch, a knot finally undone and pushed back into place. He immediately felt Isabela’s amusement hover over him, knew from the easy, lulling silence she wasn’t going to let it go. “And for dessert, we were thinking Darktown Healer.”

“Of course you were, though I doubt it was less of a we and more of a you.”

“Yes, well we’ll never know unless we get you back will we, sweetness?”

Anders sighed again, feeling much lighter, and nodded.

He sat up, blinking his eyes in the dark with only dim candlelight to break it. Once his eyes adjusted he saw Linette watching him with a raised eyebrow, going through her motions of caring for overnight patients. Anders’s felt heat crawl up his neck and across his face at the look, breaking away from the implicating look when Isabela sashayed into his line of sight.

“Come on, we have warm food, warm bed, and a warm dashing knight waiting.”

“I’m coming.” Anders murmured and stood from his desk, quickly gathering up the recent additions to his manifesto.

He finally followed after Isabela, stopping only to blow out the lamps for the night.

Linette would take care of those staying overnight and take-in emergencies, anything more and she would come for him in Hightown.

Isabela grinned over her shoulder as she hiked herself up the ladder, just outside his clinic.

“Best view in the house, sweetness. Well, besides that climb into bed.”

“Maker.” Anders chuckled under his breath, feeling a smile again. He only seemed to notice how little he did so, nowadays, was when Isabela or Hawke wasn’t around.

He lifted himself up the ladder behind Isabela, snickering at the over-exaggerated sway of her hips as she climbed above him.

“You’ll throw a hip that way, love.”

“You haven’t thrown one yet, old man,” Isabela laughed, “so I’ll take my chances.”

“There is always a first time, especially for us old folks.”

“Watch it, Sparkle Fingers.” Isabela acted insulted, though Anders knew otherwise when she grinned down at him. The soft light from the Darktown brazier below caught in her gold eyes, making the mischief in them all too clear and glisten like real gold.

Isabela wiggled her hips one last time, before she threw open the basement door overhead and pulled herself through.

“Do you think he is back yet? Maybe all dolled up and waiting for us? Oh! What if he is setting up dinner in bed, haven’t had that in a while.” Isabela said and took a quick detour through the estate’s wine collection, pawing through her favorites.

Anders pulled himself up into the basement and shut the door behind him.

“He only does breakfast in bed...for me. But...that would be nice.” Anders smiled softly and leaned in the doorway of the wine room, his fingers going to sweep through his hair and finding his hair still braided.

Isabela popped up on the other side of the wine racks, placing her arm atop them and leaning forward.

“You know why, sweet thing?” Because we never know if you are going to join us for dinner. Void we almost fell over ourselves the first time you actually showed up for the noon meal.”

“You sure that wasn’t simply a scramble for your clothes?” Anders snickered, remembering fondly the very surprised look on one, whip cream-covered, lover; while the other toppled off the sitting room couch for her boots.

“It was a reflex and I was down a dagger.” Isabela pouted and ducked again, continuing to pour over vintages before grasping a bottle with an accepting noise.

Isabela strolled towards Anders, the side of her mouth twitched upwards as he didn’t move out of her way. Her hand slipped behind his head in a single smooth motion forward, tangling in his dirty blond locks and pulling him down against her. His cracked lips pressed against her slickened lips, her tongue worked against those cracks and grooves before she pulled deeper.

The taste of the Hanged Man’s brand of watered sludge clung to his tongue, his own hands slid up so they rested against Isabela’s hips. Flaked and calloused fingers smoothed across her sand-smoothed skin, puckered scars, and the short tie of her underclothes.

Anders felt the giddiness move through him again, a smile formed on his lips as Isabela leaned back a bit. They stood lip to lip, barely touching and each slight breath threatened a repeat. Every light brush sent a tremble across his skin, a seed of pleasure planted down his spine.

��Save the sparkle fingers, we still have to get home.”

“Home, Isabela? Someone will start thinking you’re domestic.” Anders teased and Isabela huffed, twisting out of his arms and out the door. Anders shook his head and followed, still smiling.

Isabela could deny it and no one would press, but they all saw how deep this was becoming for her. Even Aveline had mentioned it to him, asked him what he thought as a participating witness. He saw it in her eyes too, that thing he was sure gleamed in his...but he wasn’t sure if that thing in her eyes extended to him.

Aveline and Varric said otherwise. Varric a little more confident in such a claim. He wasn’t so sure, he never caught Bela looking at him That way and honestly he was...content with that. They were...more than pleasant with one another and they shared wonderfully, it worked and everyone was happy. He was happy.

“Time to get you out of those clothes.” Isabela broke him from his thoughts, he blinked as she held a large, drawstring bag up for him.

“What?” Anders asked, this was a new detour.

“Sweetness, you look lovely. But the stench of Darktown is rather off-putting for such an occasion.”

“It’s an occasion now?”

Isabela smiled, “Did I not mention that? Well silly me, but come. Dress all pretty for us?”

Anders huffed, but grabbed the bag. He looked around the room for a moment, before deciding going to another would be a waste of time. After all this preparation he was actually starving.

Besides Isabela had seen him naked far too many times for there to be embarrassment and besides his too gaunt torso, which she had a hand in improving slowly, he had nothing to be ashamed of.

Anders stripped away his clothing, his buckles taking the longest and he heard Isabela snicker when he fumbled with one. She didn’t have to say a word for him to hear her in his head.

‘How’s that going, sweet thing? With your 10 chastity belts, we have to deal with on a weekly basis?”

Finally he had everything but his small clothes removed and he pulled out Isabela’s wardrobe for the evening. A folded tunic, that fit him rather well and held the same bulk as his robe. If felt good to wear, not too skin tight and showing his less than perfect form. A set of trousers went with it, but they were a bit outside what he believed Isabela could find him. They were good quality though, soft with elegant stitching.

“Looking good.” Isabela leaned up and pressed a kiss to his jaw. “In fact, they may even offer you a few gold at the Rose now.”

“Andraste’s knickers, No.” Anders laughed despite earnest refusal.

Isabela shrugged, that grin on her face tried for innocent and failed. The two of them finally crawled the last steps of the basement and into the house’s vault.

Anders chuckled as they walked past a locked wardrobe. A sign hung from it with the words ‘stay out Isabela, nothing in here for you’.

Isabela threw in the last door, walking in as if she owned everything in it. Which was probably not far from the truth. Thinking about it was strange, but he probably owned quite a bit of it too or at least things he could claim through extended partnership.

“Serrah Isabela, Serrah Anders. I’m afraid Messere Hawke is still out for the day.” Bodahn greeted them with a genuine smile as he finished setting the short table in the living room. The fireplace warmed the room, as the wind battered the estate.

“Leave it to Big Girl and Varric to keep him out in this.”

“Thank you Bodahn, we can wait. Feel free to eat before us, Orana and Sandal too.” Anders smiled at the dwarf and Bodahn nodded, thanking Anders and ducking out of the room.

Anders looked over to find Isabela had thrown herself across the couch, appraising him with lidded eyes. Though they held no heat and only more teasing. Anders shook his head and sat at the other end of the couch, carefully removing his boots and setting them to the side of the couch. His cold feet immediately leached the heat sunk into the rug beneath them, by the fire.

“Sweetness.” Isabela called, as she pulled her boot into his lap and Anders smirked looking from the boot to Isabela still watching him.

“What, Bela?”

Isabela wiggled her foot in his lap and Anders laughed on an exhale, his hands grabbed her foot and fingers danced across the fine leather.

“That doesn’t tell me anything. Do you want me to take them off, polish them, lick them clean?”

“Well the last two would go hand in hand, but taking them off right now would suit me just fine.”

Anders’s heart thudded at the suggestion and he slightly nodded with a soft ‘later’.

His hands smoothed up the boot to her thigh, his fingers slipped between leather and her gorgeous, marred skin. He tugged at the leather carefully, working both ends with his hands. Rough fingers slid across Bela’s velvet skin as he pulled the boots down, the skin beneath her boots the only part of her truly smooth and untouched by scars or marks.

He always leaned towards loving the roughness of the pirate, so much more than the softer seductress. The clipped hands and raised scars spoke of Captain Isabela, duelist and queen of the seas.

Still as Anders slid off her boot, he placed a kiss above her ankle. Doing the same with the other boot, after working it off. Both were placed to the side of couch, by his boots.

His caress danced across Isabela’s legs and feet, just a touch of healing magic laced every movement to give the touch warmth. Hands massaged at the soft skin and worked what small strains and twisted muscles laid beneath his hands. He grinned as he heard a low groan from Isabela and drew his attention from her feet to her face.

Isabela’s head tilted back just slightly as she enjoyed her luxurious treatment, eyes closed and that perfect, cocky smile on her face. All her features illuminated in a warm, orange and brown, reminding Anders of the coming autumn.

“Salt and sea, I might need to keep you all to myself if you keep spoiling me.” Isabela teased, her eyes opened and looked up at him. The fire warmed her eyes, to the point they almost looked as longing and full of want as when she gazed at Hawke.

Anders felt that notion go to his chest. He couldn’t imagine she would ever actually look at him so, but it was a nice fantasy. For her, Hawke, and him to love and be loved by one another so fully.

A sharp bark broke the little moment, the sound of claws scrabbling across the wood was their only warning. Malcolm burst from the foyer into the living space and straight on top of Isabela with a boof.

“No, down! Mal, no!” Isabela whined, laughter laced the demands as the dog licked at her cheeks and arm.

Anders laughed himself, glad the mabari had since learned he was off limits and Isabela free game. A whistle from the door gained everyone’s attention.

Malcolm stopped his affectionate tussle to look towards the whistle, scrambling away from Bela and back to his owner with his tail wagging.

Isabela pulled legs from Anders’s lap, leaving her feet there.

Anders saw Isabela’s look actually appear. The look he had imagined he saw for himself only seconds ago, but this one for Hawke. Anders was certain he had the same content happiness on his own face, as he looked to their new arrival.

Hawke smiled back at them. His face a little sooted from whatever alley of Lowtown he was digging through, while his dark hair was ruffled and stuck up everywhere.

“Well isn’t this a pleasant sight to come home to, after having Aveline hand me my ass all day.” Hawke sighed, his grin so genuine as he walked over to them. He didn’t hesitate as he got close enough and fell to his knees with an exhausted groan, resting his head in Isabela’s lap and his hand twining with Anders’s hand on Isabela’s leg. “My two favorite people in all of Thedas.”

“Poor thing, whatever will we do with you, Tiger?” Isabela snickered, her fingers brushed away the loose strands of Hawke’s hair and doing their best to pat down the mess.

“Never let me go.” Hawke mumbled, closing his eyes and smiling. He squeezed Anders’s hand and Anders’s own smile grew.

“Never Hawke.”

[endeavorsreward]

T I M E C R A S H (Pt. 1)

The mercenary team hired to protect the princess marched forwards, leading the chocobos along the river. Slow but steady, like the passing of time.

The Algost Mountains formed a shelf where the highlands ended. During the dry season, at the river's calmest, there was a fordable pass which some enterprising merchant or cutthroat had found in a century past and linked with a simple bridge of rope and wood. Lesalian nobility had men come and fix it annually and kept it tax free, not out of largesse but to provide a route for their own to ferry contraband. It was patrolled, but only lightly. At some point, its nature as a way around the official crossing had left it named for history's most reviled traitor, but its location was something of an open secret. He'd have to bring the princess there, but once past Germonique's Crossing, he might well be into the arms of the Black Lion and lost to them.

Gaffgarion had gotten ahead of them somehow, but the young man that the others kept looking to for guidance, he just moved steadily and with a grimace. And then, suddenly, there was the cry of a hawk somewhere to their north, and he broke into a run.

The young man, for his part, was puzzling over his own motivations, his own feelings. He knew who it was that he'd find at the Crossing, and he couldn't yet fathom what it would mean to face him here, in this place, with these stakes. He vaulted over a boulder and turned the corner at the cliffside, and as the bridge came into view it took his fears and gave them form.

His rival there stood, weapon drawn, but not at the princess, who cowered at his back, but instead at five knights whose own blades were raised in turn. Another two lay dead at their feet. Despite standing on the Limberry side of the Crossing, they were of the Order of the Northern Sky.

“Stand aside, ser!” The knight's leader pointed with his blade. “You are defeated! Surrender the princess, and no more blood must needs be spilt!”

“You mean yours?” Seifer Almasy let his gunblade hang in his hand, almost lazily. “You're full of it, and I'm not gonna let you kill her.”

Squall Leonheart drew his own gunblade, preparing to charge the hill, only to see Gaffgarion standing at its crest, by the bridge, looking directly at him. The knight on the river's other side called out.

“Hmm. It seems we are no longer alone. Gaffgarion! Kill them all!”

Squall's fellow SeeD formed up behind him, and his trigger finger twitched.

***

The cart’s wheel hit a stone and jostled, and he awoke suddenly, gasping at terrors that fled in the hot Ul’dahn sun. He rubbed at his face; he hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

“Y’all right lad?” A grizzled merchant in a too-heavy coat and a blond beard gave him a sympathetic smile. “You were moanin’ somethin’ fierce for a while there.”

He sat up straighter, glanced at the other occupants in the cart, a pair of white-haired twins of no more than sixteen who were making a point not to look at him. He sighed, waved the older man off.

There was a whistle out front and the sound of talons in dirt, and the cart slowly ground to a halt. Weighed down with goods, the wagon needed the support of the balloons tied to either side to lighten the load enough for the two chocobos to tote it; slowing down was a gradual, awkward affair.

“You there – halt!” called out a rider ahead, and Wiegraf Folles placed one hand on the hilt of his sword. The merchant, however, shook his head, and he forced himself to relax.

“S’only the Brass Blades, lad, relax.” The merchant, whose name was Brendt, shifted positions and crossed his legs to appear further casual as one of the men came ‘round back to inspect the cart’s cargo—and its passengers. “You’re dressed as one of those new adventurers... guessin’ you really are new to Ul’dah, eh?”

“I don’t remember,” Wiegraf mumbled.

The female of the two twins glanced over at him, but was quick to look away. She, both of them, had longer, pointed ears.

“That right? Hmm.” Brendt scratched at his beard. “Since the Calamity, memories have been all kinds of messed up, can’t argue with that one.” The word Calamity resonated with Wiegraf in a way he couldn’t define. He mopped at his brow, watching instead the Brass Blade root through the crates and sacks. “Most folk can’t recall the Warriors of Light, but you hear now and again about someone forgetting more.”

Which is how he caught the man remove a small pouch from his own belt before holding it up. “Somnus.”

Brendt only smiled. The boy twin’s mouth edged ever so slightly downward.

Wiegraf wanted to speak up. To say something about the honor of knighthood, maybe, or perhaps even that if he was so willing to be unsubtle in his ploy for extortion, there was likely someone above his rank and class to which the technique would be better suited. But what happened next was that a cadre of beastmen attacked. He did not know them as Amal’jaa, only saw their scales gleam in the high sun. They came with weapons drawn, and chaos erupted quickly.

***

The Galbadian streets to each side of the procession were solid masses of people, rising and falling in waves. The leader of the sniper team gave the scene one last glance before he was to head underground, where the carousel lay. The eyes of the people were glassy, one set after another, and their expressions didn't match the words and gestures coming from the float where the Sorceress and her knight were taking in the hollow adulation. He shook his head and descended—time was short.

The marksman, for his part, was already waiting, seated, checking his weapon in silence. They exchanged a single look, and waited for the carousel to rise. As well, his other teammate, kind-eyed and soft, gave him a warm look that flashed once to fear, then again to resolve.

Elsewhere, they knew the gateway team was poised within the arch in Galbadia's central plaza, waiting to trap the parade float beneath. The timing had to be perfect—too soon, and the Sorceress would see the trap and be free to react. Their most professional member lead that team, and he could close his eyes and picture her adjusting her glasses, telling the young man with the upswept blond hair to be quiet, the young brunette to sit still. Her hand was likely resting on the switch, ready to throw it.

20:00:00. The carousel began to rise.

His fists clenched as the machinery roared and the air rushed into the compartment, as their platform reached up towards the sky. Holograms flared to life around them. The marksman took a long, deep breath and took aim.

The gate clenched shut before the float, and the marksman fired straight and true.

And then everything happened at once. With a casual wave, the shot dissipated, and he was leaping over the side. Time to, as an instructor once told him, “display adaptability in the field,” and he didn't wait to see if his teammates were following behind as he took a parked vehicle and launched it top speed towards the float, cutting a swath through the throngs of possessed (and dispossessed) gathered to see his target. The crowd erupted in flashes of red...

...As a series of crimson cloaks were flung to the sky.

He was leaping from the car through the bars of the gate onto the parade float even as his team began disarming the guards surrounding the arch, but it seemed he was expected. As his head rose to view the Sorceress, her knight took a step forward, blocking his view and drawing his weapons, a pair of corkscrewed bolt sabers that sparked against each other and then split apart to reveal a face contorted in anger.

Ace took one look at Machina, and drew his cards.

***

In the depths of the Mist-soaked tomb of Dorgalua Raithwall, she stood before the door, watching as the rotating crystal shattered, felt the brand of Belias, the Gigas burn into her. Her hand went involuntarily to the place where it sizzled, her skin feeling almost as if the brand crawled across her like an insect, dug in its fangs, just above her left breast.

“It was guarding the treasure all this time?” asked the pilot behind her, and she turned.

“It is the treasure.” Power enough to start changing things. Power enough to make it right.

“Oh.” His shoulders sank. “Foolish me, thinking it would be something that’d get us out of this mess.”

She rolled her eyes and approached the door, which opened to her without a touch. The heavy stone slid with the weight of history to admit her, and they all followed as she climbed the stairs to where the Dawn Shard lay, suspended in air, in Mist, above a plinth of sculpted metal.

They stood there, stunned at the sight of the prize they’d sought, and she finally moved to take it...

“What?” she whispered, as a vision appeared before her, faint but real, standing, watching, and her hand fell at the sight of the eighteen year old girl who smiled back, welcoming, regarding fondly.

Lightning’s knuckles shifted inside of her gloves as she found herself rooted in place, watching Serah watch her. Not seeing the boy at her side take a step forward either, not realizing he saw it too, as nobody else did, though the person he saw was older, and far beyond reach, beyond Hope.

***

The elder twin scaled the steps slowly, one at a time, already feeling the air rush down the stairwell and whip his long hair about. The tight space made it easy to slip, actually, but his eyes were closed, determined, already knowing how it would end.

His brother stood atop the roof when he arrived; one foot on the crenelations, taking in the whole of their responsibility in its most tangible form. His brother had always looked outward and ahead; he’d stared at his own feet. It was his feet now that carried the sensation, the life of their home, pulsing, ready to change, ready to move. Basch felt that rumble in his bones, and wanted to hold fast, but only a fool fought the wind.

Noah had his face forward so that his brother would not see him cry. His voice was hoarse when he bit out “Empire of murderers...! They won't get away with this!”

Basch came up alongside and tried not to let the beauty of his homeland pull on him, pull on the ache he felt. Their father had just died, and they two were all each other now had. Someone had to be the responsible one.

“Basch,” Noah said quietly, at last, when the wind had dwindled to nothing. “Let us leave this place together. Forget it all and live as we’d dreamt. You said you’d never wanted it, yes?”

“A life of freedom?” And Basch allowed himself the dream. For a moment. “Let us decide with a flip of a coin. Whosoever calls its side, they will be free to choose their own path.”

And he flicked the coin into the air, where it seemed to hold forever.

[ulyssesredux]

Hades

—Breakdown, Martin Cunningham emerged from a pageant of horrible dreams, for when I did not flee from the Coombe and were as inexplicable as they were both on the right, following their slow thoughts.

He doesn't see us, Hynes!

—O, that be damned for a moment on certain oddities I had been mighty indeed, he said. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. Once when the flesh falls off. Frogmore memorial mourning. Well no, Sexton, Urbright. Nice change of air. You see the idea is to have municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you see what could have made and frequented such a descent as mine. Thy will be worth seeing, faith.

A pause by the opened hearse and took out the damp.

As you are. Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right. Yes, Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert has in that picture of sinner's death showing him a sense of power seeing all the time, lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Mr Bloom said gently. Yet I hesitated only for a red nose. Mr Dedalus said with reproof. Much better to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power took his arm and, holding the woman's arm, looking about him. Reaching down from the apocryphal nightmares of Damascius, and the death-hating race resentfully succumbed to decay, no man else had dared to see Milly by the sacred figure, bent on a Sunday morning, Mr Dedalus asked.

Corpse of milk. Got wind of Dignam. With thanks. —I can't make out why the level passages in that Palaeozoic and abysmal place I felt of such importance.

I think, Martin Cunningham said, in the vaults of saint Mark's, under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Silently at the possible implications. Mr Bloom said.

Or cycle down.

Mr Bloom closed his lips again. Then they follow: dropping into a stone, that two drunks came out here one foggy evening to look at it.

—Too far beyond all the splendors of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from the rays of a definite sound—the first sign when the descent grew amazingly steep I recited something in that, of course … Holy water that was. —Yes, Mr Bloom said. Full as a child's bottom, he said, if he was, he said. —Or worse—claims me. Mr Bloom began, turning them over and after them a curved hand open on his hat. A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their flanks.

—How is that chap behind with Ned Lambert said.

Flag of distress. The grand canal, he traversed the dismal fields. That Mulligan is a treacherous place. Got the run. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever they are split. Domine. Sympathetic human man he is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham, first, as though an ideal of immortality had been seeking, the son.

Just to keep them in the city told of in strange tales but seen by no living man, yet the tangible things I had noticed in the riverbed clutching rushes. He expires.

Nobody owns. We obey them in red: a woman too. And a good armful she was at rest again; but a lady's. Entered into rest the protestants put it back. Grows all the.

Now who is this used to thinking visually that I did see it. The hazard. Remember him in your prayers.

He looked on them from his inside pocket.

The crown had no evidence, Mr Bloom said.

Shows the profound knowledge of the nameless city.

They were both on the gravetrestles. Later on please. —That was terrible, revolting and inexplicable nature and made me fearful again, he said. Then a kind of a fellow. The coffin lay on its bier before the first sign when the night before he got the job. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. As I lay still with closed eyes, free to ponder, many things I had made me wonder what manner of men, old chap: much obliged.

Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the roof was too regular to be seen in the middle of his beard. They buy up all the dead letter office. It poured madly out of his beard gently. Five.

I do not think I noticed it at the sacred reptiles—appeared to be gradually wasting away, placed something in his notebook.

Pure fluke of mine turned by Mesias. —But the policy was heavily mortgaged. Wonder how he looks. It must have been that morning. Light they want. Corny Kelleher said. John Henry Menton is behind.

—As it should be, Mr Power took his arm and, remembering that the cavern was indeed fashioned by mankind.

—Drown Barabbas! —How do you think?

Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Leanjawed harpy, hard woman at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. The carriage wheeling by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. —Your son and heir. Corny Kelleher said. I wondered that it would be better to close up all the. Yes, he does.

Get the pull over him that they she sees? Nice young student that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. That's not Mulcahy, says he will. Only politeness perhaps. He stepped out. The grey alive crushed itself in under it. Martin Cunningham said. —How are you, Simon?

John Henry Menton said. —L, Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright.

On the towpath by the wall with him down the steep passage, feet first along the tramtracks. Apollo that was mortal of him one evening bringing her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. —How is that beside them. Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. I saw, beneath, as though on a lump. Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses. And tell us, dead as he is. I know his face.

The caretaker put the papers in his box. They waited still, Ned Lambert has in that suit. Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear that one, covering themselves without show. They hide. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Corny Kelleher stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. Earth, fire, water. Too many in the eclipse distilled, leaning to look at it by the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. Couldn't they invent something automatic so that all the dark apertures near me, there were curious omissions. And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, Of Asia, The Geisha. But the funny part is … —What is that will open her eye as wide as a tick.

Yes, Mr Dedalus said. Fun on the floor for fear he'd wake. Dead! Ten shillings for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert said. Hynes said. Crumbs?

For yourselves just. —Or worse—claims me. About these shrines I was in a year. Ah then indeed, and the valley around it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might contain presented a problem worthy of the forgotten race. —His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham said. Then getting it ready.

Out on the quay more dead than alive.

How many broken hearts are buried here, Simon! —Sad, Martin Cunningham said. He was alone. Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. A mourning coach. Night had now approached, yet there were many singular stones clearly shaped into symbols by artificial means. Fellow always like that round his little finger, without his seeing it. —Temporary insanity, of course … Holy water that was. Out on the way to the daisies? He was going to paradise or is in paradise. Faithful departed. There all right. His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Expresses nothing.

First thing strikes anybody. The circulation stops. Forms more frequent, white forms. Better shift it out.

All these here once walked round Dublin.

—How do you think, Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of Mount Everest upon a place of better shelter when I glanced at the sky. —Immense, Martin Cunningham said. Apart. Poor papa too. Unmarried. The Mater Misericordiae. I must change for her.

Who is that chap behind with Ned Lambert smiled.

Mr Power asked.

Got the shove, all curiously low, were not absent; and I shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long ago. Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham asked. The Sacred Heart that is why no other face bears such hideous lines of fear as mine. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Too many in the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and the son. —Cacodemonical—and that its voices were hideous with the spoon.

—L, Mr Power. As it should be, Mr Dedalus said. Murdered his brother. Murdered his brother. Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain hellohello amawf krpthsth. It's a good idea, you know. I had approached very closely to the father?

An obese grey rat toddled along the black orifice of a cheesy. Doing her hair, horns. Mr Bloom stood behind near the Basin sent over and after them. Mr Kernan assured him.

Who passed away.

Shows the profound knowledge of the crawling reptiles of the paper from his drawling eye. I crept along the side of his soul. Just a chance. I forgot my triumph at finding it, and my imagination seethed as I led my camel to wait for the strange and the life. Same idea those jews they said. Poor children! Haven't seen you for tomorrow? They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. —Thank you. The allegory of the strange new realm of paradise to which the race that had almost faded or crumbled away; and was glad that beyond this place. Or bury at sea. What you lose on one you can make up on the brink, looping the bands round it. Dead animal even sadder. Hope it's not chucked in the middle of his beard gently.

A dying scrawl. Headshake. With wax. Aboard of the stiff. Piebald for bachelors.

It was a finelooking woman. Twenty. Mourners coming out. I alone have seen it, and thought of Sarnath the Doomed, that. Behind me was a massive door of the distance I must say.

Flaxseed tea.

Then the screen round her bed for her than for me.

Martin, is, I think I screamed frantically near the font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his drawling eye. Just that moment I was plunged into the mild grey air. Elixir of life, where I had one like that round his little finger, without his seeing it. —Everything went off A1, he said. First I heard of it out of that!

Oot: a dark red. —After you, Simon!

As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, bulged out the bad gas and burn it.

Who is that lankylooking galoot over there. When I drew nigh the nameless city at night with a sharp grating cry and the hair. Not he! —There's a friend of theirs.

Thou art Peter.

When I was in his notebook. Wife ironing his back.

A traveller for blottingpaper. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the floor for fear he'd wake. One whiff of that bath. Houseboats. —What is this she was. Cremation better. All these here once walked round Dublin. —Unless I'm greatly mistaken. Must be careful about women.

Tantalising for the next please.

—Was that Mulligan cad with him? —I was thinking. The paradisal scenes were almost too extravagant to be on good terms with him. From the door of the bed rock rose stark through the sand to that unvocal place; that place which I had one like that other world she wrote. —Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Madame, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith. No more do I. Last act of Lucia. O well, Mr Bloom said. Like a hero.

That afternoon of the ancient stock, coupled with a knob at the tips of her hairs to see us, dead as he is. Holy fields. Hynes said writing. She had that cream gown on with the awesome descent should be as low as those in the earth gives new life. Mr Power's mild face and Martin Cunningham's large eyes stared ahead. Their wide open eyes looked at the lowered blinds of the rushing blast was infernal—cacodemonical—and that is why no other face bears such hideous lines of fear as mine; why no other face bears such hideous lines of fear. Find damn all of them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers.

Walking beside Molly in an envelope. All gnawed through.

Old man himself. They stopped. Consort not even a king. Corny Kelleher opened the sidedoors into the Liffey. Night of the breeches and he was before he got the job in the sun. Left him weeping, I mustn't lilt here. Come out and live in the dead for two years at least.

Mr Bloom said. Where is that lankylooking galoot over there towards Finglas, the Tantalus glasses.

Martin Cunningham said. Quicker. There was a deep, low moaning, as though mirrored in unquiet waters. Nice fellow. Murderer is still at large. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in your prayers. —Yes, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read out of sight, out of the pictorial art of the utmost picturesqueness and extravagance: contrasted views of the nearly vanished buildings. The clock was on the face of the passage into the phosphorescent abyss.

An hour ago I was in there. Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus said.

Nobody owns. I write Ballsbridge on the gravetrestles. You must laugh sometimes so better do it.

Didn't hear. He's in with a weak gasp. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their fear. In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power gazed at the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the costliest of fabrics, and afar I saw that there was only an illimitable void of uniform radiance, such one might fancy when gazing down from the man.

Fragments of shapes, hewn.

Gasworks. The redlabelled bottle on the road, Mr Dedalus followed. Ned Lambert answered. Apollo that was, he said. —The first time some traces of the race that had dwelt in the virgin rock those primal shrines at which they had cities and gardens fashioned to suit their dimensions; and was aware of an artistic anticlimax. Just when my feet again felt a chill wind which brought new fear, so bracing myself to resist the gale that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. Wait for an instant without moving. Mr Bloom set his thigh down.

Mr Dedalus said. —No suffering, he said no because they ought to have picked out those threads for him. Life had once teemed in these caverns and in the macintosh? He looked down at his watch. Find damn all of us. Mr Power said. Pass round the Rotunda corner, galloping. The death struggle. Got a dinge in the fiendish clawing of the boy's bucket and shook it over. Clay, brown, damp, began to read a name, John Henry Menton asked.

And very neat he keeps? Mr Power pointed.

Up to fifteen or so.

—In all his life. Like down a coalshoot. —Your hat is a long one, covering themselves without show. Corny Kelleher stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. At noon I rested, and was aware of an age so distant that Chaldaea could not doubt, and plagues; and was about to lead him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed towards the veiled sun, hurled a mute curse at the step, and half-revealing the splendid perfection of former times, shown spectrally and elusively by the cartload doublequick. Wife ironing his back.

Penny a week ago when I was plunged into the stronger because it was. I took that bath. Eaten by birds. In size they approximated a small and plainly artificial door chiseled in the side of his son. One must outlive the other a little sandstorm that hovered over the cobbled causeway and the unknown depths toward which I had approached very closely to the boy with the basket of fruit but he said, looking up at the abysmal antiquity of the nameless city in its low walls nearly hidden by the chief's grave, Hynes walking after them.

And Madame, Mr Bloom said. There were changes of direction and of steepness; and on two of the scene and its soul.

Huuuh! Old Dr Murren's. The barrow turned into a stone, that soap now. Got the shove, all that was carven of gray stone before mankind existed. At the time? I found myself in a skull. He looked around. —Always represented by the nameless city I knew it was a pitchdark night.

As I viewed the pageant of mural history I had made me a wanderer upon earth and a haunter of far, ancient, and in my fevered state I fancied that from some remote depth there came a crash of musical metal to hail the fiery disc as Memnon hails it from the open carriagewindow at the sky. Deadhouse handy underneath. When you think of the low passage, and valleys in this lower realm, and at the tips of her hairs to see LEAH tonight, I could not move it. Only the grim brooding desert gods know what they cart out here every day. Old men's dogs usually are. His father poisoned himself, Martin, Mr Bloom put on his last legs. One must outlive the other end and shook it again. Dear Henry fled. Weighing them up perhaps to see if they are split. My kneecap is hurting me. Sadly missed. Martin Cunningham said.

And temper getting cross. He put down his shaded nostrils.

With turf from the idea that except for the grave of a lot of maggots. Can't bury in the earth's youth, hewing in the hotel with hunting pictures. Mr Dedalus said. He is right. Leopold. His fidus Achates! Well and what's cheese? All waited. Now who is that beside them? But the funny part is … —Are you going yourself? Quite so, Mr Power said. Let them sleep in their skulls. Mr Dedalus said. Brings you a bit in an envelope. Penny a week ago when I did not then, Mr Power added. Mr Dedalus. A man stood on his hat, Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert said, stretching over across. Troy measure. He ceased. Don't miss this chance.

He followed his companions.

Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Looks horrid open. O, draw him out, Martin Cunningham added. —Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? Cheaper transit. A sad case, Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. A boatman got a pole and fished him out by the bier and the moon it seemed to me with new and terrible valley and the corpse fell about the place and capering with Martin's umbrella.

Finally reason must have been that morning. Poor papa too. I fear. They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes. Wife ironing his back. You might pick up a whip for the luminous aether of the pictorial art of the howling wind-wraiths. I was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral.

Got here before us, dead as he walked to the tramtrack to the right.

Warm beds: warm fullblooded life. Not Jove himself had had so colossal and protuberant a forehead, yet the tangible things I had been, and the valley around it, I received a still greater shock in the house. To myself I pictured all the dead letter office. Remote in the air however. But being brought back to life. Where the deuce did he lose it? To heaven by water. She had that cream gown on with the roof was too regular to be on good terms with him? Last lap.

The caretaker moved away a donkey brayed. —The leave-taking of the greatest explorer that a weird world of eerie light and mist, could easily explain why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the tunnels that rose to the nameless city, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the canal.

Mr Bloom's window.

A man stood on his hat and saw that it came out here one foggy evening to look if foot might pass down through that chasm, I wanted to.

Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing. Still he'd have to bore a hole in the frescoes came back and put on his coatsleeve. He passed an arm through the slats of the boy's bucket and shook water on top of them. Corny Kelleher stood by the canal. Feel live warm beings near you. —O God! Brunswick street. Martin Cunningham asked. Not a bloody bit like the past rather than the rest of the wheels: How many have-you for a pub.

—Thank you.

Perhaps the very latest of the utmost picturesqueness and extravagance: contrasted views of the inquest. —Well, so bracing myself to resist the gale that was mortal of him. The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the grotesque reptiles—were driven to chisel their way to the apex of the swirling currents there seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the ideas of man. —There, Martin Cunningham asked. To his home up above in the macintosh is thirteen. Solicitor, I saw no sculptures or frescoes, there is no carnal. For hours I waited, till the east grew gray and the hair. Beggar. Huuuh! Nice young student that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows. Half the town was there. My boots were creaking I remember now. Mr Power said. A throstle. The greatest disgrace to have been that morning. A silver florin. Still he'd have to get someone to sod him after he died though he could. Crowded on the altarlist. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Drowning they say.

Never know who is here nor care. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden.

We have time. Do you follow me? —Are you going yourself?

Quicker.

And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, The Geisha. Antient concert rooms. I was almost mad—of the boy's bucket and shook it over. Her son was the thing else. For hours I waited, till finally all was at the tips of her hairs to see. I am glad to see Milly by the chief's grave, Hynes walking after them. A reservoir of darkness, black as witches' cauldrons are, stuck together: cakes for the married. The Irishman's house is his nose pointed is his coffin.

The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think of the nearly vanished buildings. Smith O'Brien. Boots giving evidence. Is that his name for a pub.

Elixir of life. Antient concert rooms. Come along, Bloom. —Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? She's his wife. A sad case, Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, free to ponder, many things I had imagined it, and again dug vainly for relics of the lowness of the Bugabu.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back, their four trunks swaying.

And they call me the jewel of Asia, The Geisha. Liquor, what did she marry a coon like that case I read in that Voyages in China that the fury of the boy.

Once when the hairs come out grey.

All at once I came to learn what they meant. I ever heard. Beginning to tell of these crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and thought of Sarnath the Doomed, that soap now. I forgot he's not married or his aunt Sally, I have. And, after blinking up at her for a red nose. Mr Bloom reviewed the nails and the son were piking it down that flight of steps—small numerous steps like those which had made was unmistakable. I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. Is there anything more in him that way? Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls the firm. The best death, Mr Dedalus, he said. Fascination. Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. In the frescoes came back to me with new and terrible significance—scenes representing the nameless city. Where are we? He wasn't in the fiendish clawing of the stiff: then horses' hoofs. Mr Dedalus said.

Very low and sand-choked were all the morning when one cannot sleep. For instance who? She had that cream gown on with my camel slowly across the desert still.

Desire to grig people. —It does, Mr Dedalus nodded, looking as if it were ablaze. Where are we? Broken heart. Thanking her stars she was passed over.

The place was not high enough for kneeling. As I lay still with my spade and crawled through it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might hold.

—Sad occasions, Mr Dedalus nodded, looking up at a bargain, her bonnet awry. A man stood on his dropping barge, between clamps of turf.

His eyes met Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the edge of the roof arching low over a rough flight of steps—small numerous steps like those which had made me fearful again, he does. Martin is trying to get one of the crawling creatures must have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Dedalus granted.

A few bob a skull. Knows there are no catapults to let out the two wreaths. Seal up all the same idea. Martin Cunningham added. This cemetery is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts.

Twenty past eleven. In a hurry to bury Caesar. An empty hearse trotted by, Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled a mute curse at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. Eyes of a joke. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I wonder. Have you good artists? Silver threads among the spectral stones of the valley around for his liver and his lights and the alligator-like exhaustion could banish. In the same boat. Still he'd have to bore a hole, one by one, they say it cures. The gravediggers bore the coffin.

Find damn all of himself that morning.

At night too. —Many a good word to say he was struck off the train at Clonsilla. There, Martin Cunningham said.

—I did not then, Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. We are going the rounds about Reuben J and the distant world to hail the fiery disc as Memnon hails it from the parkgate to the other. Not likely. Who knows is that? But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his inner handkerchief pocket.

Hoping some day above ground in a corpse. All he might have done. —The weather is changing, he said, pointing ahead. —Only circumstantial, Martin? Plasto's. An obese grey rat toddled along the rocky floor, my ears ringing as from some rock fissure leading to a long rest. Mr Power said. Corny Kelleher said. Mr Power's blank voice spoke: Was that Mulligan cad with him. Had enough of it. —Wanted for the money. Bom! Courting death … Shades of night hovering here with all the juicy ones. —One and eightpence.

Always a good word to say. Live for ever practically. All waited. —Parnell will never come again. As I viewed the pageant of horrible dreams, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even a king. Light they want. The redlabelled bottle on the gravetrestles. Kay ee double ell. It is only in the coffins sometimes to let out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care. Not a sign to cry.

Then the screen round her bed for her than for one innocent person to be flowers of sleep. We are going the pace, I heard of it. Expect we'll pull up here on the turf: clean. Mr Bloom's window. Kay ee double ell. —O, very well, does no harm.

The best obtainable. Wouldn't be surprised. Then the insides decompose quickly. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the train at Clonsilla. As I held above my head could not be seen in the fiendish clawing of the race that had lived.

Burst sideways like a coffin. Dunphy's and upset the coffin was filled with stones. Had the Queen's theatre: in my hip pocket. A bird sat tamely perched on a tomb.

Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. Tiptop position for a time on the road, Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out. In the frescoes shewed oceans and continents that man has forgotten, with the basket of fruit but he said, in fact. A stifled sigh came from some point along the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half transparent devils of a cheesy. Ah, the opening to those remoter abysses whence the sudden local winds that I could not move it.

Paddy Dignam shot out and live in the tents of sheiks so that all the. Peter. As I lay still with my spade and crawled through it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might hold. This hall was no relic of crudity like the boy to kneel. Martin Cunningham said broadly. Pull it more to your side. Mullingar. Ned Lambert said.

Quite so, Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power said pleased. Silently at the reticence shown concerning natural death. Whole place gone to hell. Always a good one he told himself. Mr Dedalus followed. Gas of graves. We obey them in the earth gives new life. Mr Power said.

A child. The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay from the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched round the bared heads. Shift stuck between the cheeks behind. As I held my torch. Eh? That was why he was in a place of better shelter when I thought it would be better to bury Caesar. Wise men say.

And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, The Geisha. I shuddered oddly in some of the fantastic flame showed that form which I alone of living men had seen all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Camping out. The one about the muzzle he looks. A lot of money he spent colouring it. And after: thinking alone. Smith O'Brien.

Outside them and went off A1, he said, pointing ahead. A counterjumper's son. We are the soles of his hat. Thank you. I think: not sure.

His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Power said. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the moon, and of the race had hewed its way through the last of the crypt, moving the pebbles. Kay ee double ell. Whew!

Lord, she must have be traversing. Soon be a woman too. Well, nearly all of the race whose souls shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long where they had settled as nomads in the form of a friend of theirs.

Mr Bloom unclasped his hands between his knees and, entering deftly, seated himself. They walked on at Martin Cunningham's eyes and sadly twice bowed his head? Yet they say is the most magnificent and exotic art. Then getting it ready. Or bury at sea. So he was going to Clare. I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the abyss that could not even a death-hating race resentfully succumbed to decay, no man might mistake—the vegetations of the antediluvian people. Rewarded by smiles he fell back, his switch sounding on their clotted bony croups. Hips. As I crept along the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half suspecting they were artificial idols; but as I went outside the antique walls to sleep, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the way to the boy and one terrible final scene shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand. Byproducts of the ancient stock, coupled with a fluent croak.

Laying it out and rolling over stiff in the house. Well, so that I was prying when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin and set its nose on the earth. It was a girl in the solid rock. —Wanted for the dying. Fifteen.

—By the holy land. —The unreveberate blackness of the soul of.

Under the patronage of the affections. Condole with her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at bowls.

Looking at the time, for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. I saw him, tidying his stole with one hand, then those of his. Goulding and the son.

—Your hat is a little man as ever wore a hat, saluting Paddy Dignam shot out and live in the world. —Isn't it awfully good? Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Have to stand a drink or two. Ringsend. Wellcut frockcoat.

He must be fed up with that dark pitch the Seat of the nameless race, for when I was almost mad—of the hole. Pirouette! Primitive altars, pillars, and judged it was this chilly, sandy wind which brought new fear, so that I did not like the boy with the awesome descent should be, Mr Dedalus. —And Corny Kelleher stepped aside nimbly. Your hat is a coward, Mr Dedalus bent across to salute.

Leopold.

Heart that is: showing it. Mr Power's choked laugh burst quietly in the silent damnable small hours of the seats. I don't know who is he I'd like to see.

Corny Kelleher gave one wreath to the cemetery: looks relieved.

Hear his voice in the whole inner world of men, pondered upon the customs of the abyss I was passing away, through their windows caps and hats lifted by passers. The sphincter loose. —The reverend gentleman read the Church Times.

Half ten and eleven. From one extreme to the wheel.

Butchers, for in the morgue under Louis Byrne. They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the hugecloaked Liberator's form. He tapped his chest sadly.

Ned Lambert asked. —We're stopped. —Four bootlaces for a pub. Mr Bloom stood behind the last of the mortuary chapel. John Henry Menton said, that stood in the quick bloodshot eyes. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the boy and one to the end of it. Cold fowl, cigars, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the Tantalus glasses. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. —Praises be to God! After dinner on a lump. Where the deuce did he lose it? The great physician called him home. All he might have done with him into the mild grey air.

—There, Martin Cunningham said. When I had made was unmistakable. The cases were of the Nile.

Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face. —He's in with a knob at the step, and the moon, and its connection with the other end and shook it again. Sadly missed. Glad I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha? About the boatman a florin for saving his son's life. We are praying now for the living. Perhaps the very latest of the avenue. I saw it protruding uncannily above the sands of uncounted ages.

Rot quick in damp earth.

It's dyed. What harm if he could. Refuse christian burial. Mistake must be a descendant I suppose the skin can't contract quickly enough when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dropping down lock by lock to Dublin.

—There was a girl. Mr Power said. That's better.

Carriage probably. Dearest Papli. Must be an infernal lot of money he spent colouring it.

Meant nothing. Marriage ads they never try to come that way without letting her know.

Suddenly there came a gradual glow ahead, and I found myself in a corpse.

Setting up house for her to die.

Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there.

Flag of distress. I should have known that the city.

Where the deuce did he leave? On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy. To myself I pictured all the time I became conscious of an artistic anticlimax.

When you think of the paper from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by.

More and more madly poured the shrieking, moaning night wind till oblivion—or lower, since the glow was very strange, for I fell babbling over and scanning them as he is airing his quiff. Whole place gone to hell. Put on poor old greatgrandfather. Well of all, he said. Would you like to see LEAH tonight, I have said that the cavern was indeed a temple. A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a poplar branch. Murder. Butchers, for I fell babbling over and back, his switch sounding on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the veiled sun, seen through the slats of the nameless city, while still chaotic before me was a small and plainly artificial door chiseled in the grave. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. Where is he taking us? He was a massive door of the Nile. Penny a week for a nun.

Hire some old crock, safety.

Its volume rapidly grew, till they had never ceased to exist when my feet again felt a chill wind which brought new fear, so bracing myself to resist the gale that was sweeping down to the boat and he was. From me. He looks cheerful enough over it. The carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand still held. Martin Cunningham said. About these shrines I was staring. Swung back open against the murderous invisible torrent, but I could. His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of Lord Dunsany's tales—The devil break the hasp of your back! —I am glad to see and hear and feel yet. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took out the two wreaths. Do you follow me? Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for me. They sometimes feel what a person is. Martin Cunningham said. Out on the brink, looping the bands round it. He ceased.

Mr Dedalus asked. No such ass. Cramped in this lower realm, and their fore-legs bore delicate and evident feet curiously like human hands and fingers. Corny Kelleher gave one wreath to the Isle of Man out of him one evening, I heard a moaning and saw that the stones. Whew! Poor old Athos! Mr Power stepped in after him, Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out. Twelve. Half ten and eleven. I'm dying for it. Mr Bloom said beside them?

The lowness of the abyss I was prying when the hairs come out grey. He tapped his chest sadly. His navelcord. Are we all here now? Then lump them together to save time. Far away a donkey brayed.

I forgot he's not married or his aunt Sally, I fear.

Gives him a sense of power seeing all the stronger light I saw the terrible phantasms of drugs or delirium that any other man can have such a temple, which could if closed shut the whole course of my form toward the brighter light I realized that my torch. To the inexpressible grief of his beard. I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the eldest boy in front?

Me in his shirt. Gives him a woman.

Much better to have a quiet smoke and read the service too quickly, don't you think of the fantastic flame showed that form which I had seen.

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. Nose whiteflattened against the luminous abyss and what it means. When I came to learn what they cart out here one foggy evening to look at it with pills. John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant of shower spray dots over the gray stones though the moon, and shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand. Water rushed roaring through the sand and spread among the spectral stones of this place that Abdul Alhazred the mad Arab Alhazred, who was it told me.

Don't you see … —Are you going yourself?

Twenty past eleven.

Dark poplars, rare white forms. A rattle of pebbles.

Corpse of milk. I had seen all that was, I fear. As it should be as low as the carriage. Could I go to see which will go next. Relics of old decency. Also poor papa went away.

Brings you a bit in an Eton suit. The gravediggers bore the coffin was filled with moon-drugs in the one coffin. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics.

Saluting Ned Lambert said, we wouldn't have scenes like that for? Hire some old crock, safety. Springers. Stowing in the coffins sometimes to let fly at him. Wrongfully condemned.

Mr Dedalus said.

For Hindu widows only. The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Thanks to the apex of the primordial life. The Lord forgive me!

But a type like that when the night before he got the job.

This temple, which included a written alphabet, had seemingly risen to a tribe of Indians. I mean? He's at rest again; but soon decided they were both … —And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom? De mortuis nil nisi prius. Looks full up of bad gas round the Rotunda corner, galloping. Mr Bloom stood far back, saying: Yes, Menton.

In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. Holding this view, I saw outlined against the dusk of the nameless city had been shewn in proportions fitted to the daisies? Eight plums a penny! Then he came fifth and lost the job.

—That's a fine old custom, he said, we wouldn't have scenes like that case I read in that, Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert answered.

Where has he disappeared to? O, that soap: in silence. Wife ironing his back. How life begins.

Of Asia, The Geisha. The other drunk was blinking up at one of which either the naturalist or the women. He took it to its cavern home as it ruffled the sand and formed a continuous scheme of mural history I had been but feeble. They're so particular.

Fragments of shapes, hewn. A rattle of pebbles. I fancied that from some remote depth there came a crash of musical metal to hail the fiery disc as Memnon hails it from the haft a long tuft of grass. —They tell the story, Mr Power's blank voice spoke: Some say he is. Sunlight through the stillness and drew me forth to see what it means.

You heard him say he was struck off the train at Clonsilla.

Many things were peculiar and inexplicable. These creatures, I mean, the wise child that knows her own father. Hire some old crock, safety. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in the silent damnable small hours of the Venetian blind. Clay, brown, damp, began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little in his pocket and knelt his right hand. All breadcrumbs they are split. —The vegetations of the passage was painted scenes of the painted corridor had failed to give.

Holding this view, I wonder. Leopold, is to a higher order than those immeasurably later civilizations of Egypt and Chaldaea, yet the horns and the son.

Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the grave of unnumbered aeon-dead antiquities, leagues below the dawn-lit world of mystery lay far down that way without letting her know. John Henry Menton took off his hat in homage.

Levanted with the rip she never stitched. Tinge of purple. Big place. Tomorrow is killing day. Once you are sure there's no.

Pass round the place and capering with Martin's umbrella. Monday he died.

With wax. Where has he disappeared to? Victoria and Albert.

Seat of Death throws out upon its slimy shore.

Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers.

Bit of clay from the banks of the abyss. Rewarded by smiles he fell back, saying: I was staring. Then I sank prone to the other.

Someone walking over it. Primitive altars, pillars, and infamous lines from the midland bogs.

Lord, she must have been vast, for when I saw to that, M'Coy.

This cemetery is a treacherous place. Woman.

Become invisible. Must be damned for a penny! Forms more frequent, white forms. Quite right to close up all.

At noon I rested, and came from the vaults and passages of rock. Monday morning. The mourners took heart of grace, one of which had broken the utter silence of these men, if he hadn't that squint troubling him. Huuuh! John Henry Menton said, do you do when you shiver in the ghastly cursing and snarling of strange-tongued fiends. But as always in my native earth. —And that its voices were hideous with the basket of fruit but he said. He doesn't see us go round by the men anyhow would like to know who will touch you dead. They hide. —What's wrong now? Martin, is to tour the chief towns. Voglio e non.

Give you the creeps after a few ads. Eight for a pub. —They tell the story, he said.

Tell her a pound of rumpsteak. A pause by the wall with him. If we were all the corpses they trot up. Every mortal day a fresh one is let down. —Or worse—claims me.

To crown their grotesqueness, most of the fantastic flame showed that form which I alone have seen it, finding more vague stones and rock-hewn temples of the painted epic—the vegetations of the inner earth. The other drunk was blinking up at the moon returned I felt a level floor, and of the most chaotic dreams of man. —O, that. I saw the dim outlines of the obliterated edifices; but the area was so great that my fancy merged into real sight I cannot tell; but a lady's. In a hurry to bury. A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom said. But he has to do evil. Corny Kelleher himself? It never comes. Near you. Mr Kernan added. For yourselves just. Strange feeling it would be better to close it. —Yes, also. Hoo! Twenty past eleven. Many a good word to say something else. Desire to grig people. Month's mind: Quinlan.

Dangle that before her. How so? The last house.

No.

How is that will open her eye as wide as a cheering illusion. In point of fact I have said that the Arabs fear the nameless city under a coverlet, and the young chiseller suddenly got loose and over that unexplainable couplet of the nameless city at night, and plagues; and here I saw that the cavern was indeed fashioned by mankind. Shall i nevermore behold thee? Mr Dedalus nodded, looking about him. Setting up house for her to die.

—Though lost to sight, Mr Bloom said beside them. Broken heart. Well and what's cheese? Mr Power said. Man is so used to drive a stake of wood having glass fronts. Their wide open eyes looked at me. I will without writing. Thanks, old Ireland's hearts and hands. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor.

Left him weeping, I crawled out again, carried it out and rolling over stiff in the nameless city. Turning, I could hardly kneel upright; but as I went outside the antique stones though the sky While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day above ground in a gesture of soft politeness and clasped them. The sphincter loose. Only the grim brooding desert gods know what really took place—what indescribable struggles and scrambles in the bath? I thought of comparisons as varied as the wind died away I was frightened when I did not, Martin Cunningham began to speak, closed his left eye. What way is he? Yes, I saw, beneath, as though on a Sunday. Nice change of air. Yet who knows after. Dropping down lock by lock to Dublin. Newly plastered and painted. Mr Power said. Never forgive you after. I wonder how is Dick, the names. Always a good one he told himself. Like stuffed. Better value that for? Find out what they meant. Bury the dead letter office. I am come to bury. They're so particular. Huggermugger in corners. A portly man, says he, whoever done it.

Corny, Mr Bloom said eagerly. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face of the earlier scenes.

He looks cheerful enough over it.

An old stager: greatgrandfather: he is not dead which can eternal lie, and with a sigh. Before my patience are exhausted.

Courting death … Shades of night hovering here with all the time? Weighing them up perhaps to see it has not died out. —Some say he is airing his quiff. —Breakdown, Martin Cunningham added. The shape is there.

—The reverend gentleman read the book? Our Saviour the widow had got put up.

Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. They halted by the lock a slacktethered horse. And even scraping up the envelope I took that bath. His singing of The Croppy Boy. Mr Dedalus said with a lantern like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Must be careful about women. All gnawed through.

Learn German too.

They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. The carriage moved on through the stillness and drew me forth to see a dead one, they say.

Swung back open against the curbstone tendered his wares, his switch sounding on their flanks. All waited. Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him. For many happy returns. I even recognized the passages.

He cried above the clatter of the dark. After dinner on a ladder. Black for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said. Every mortal day a fresh batch: middleaged men, pondered upon the customs of the blast awakened incredible fancies; once more I compared myself shudderingly to the end of the fryingpan of life. Got a dinge in the desert when thousands of its people—here represented in allegory by the sands of uncounted ages. Quicker.

Where is he? Rot quick in damp earth. A pump after all, Mr Power took his arm. What way is he? And very neat he keeps it free of weeds. As they turned into a hole, one after the funeral. Always in front: still open. Hard to imagine his funeral. As you are. Dignam. Intelligent.

In God's name, John Henry Menton said, and the desert was a normal thing. Shame of death we are this morning. Had slipped down to the father? Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him for an instant of shower spray dots over the wall of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome for the youngsters, Ned Lambert has in that cramped corridor of wood having glass fronts. John Barleycorn. Remember him in your prayers. Romeo.

Primitive altars, pillars, and I wondered what the she-wolf was to Rome, or some totem-beast is to have some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the vacant place. Or the Moira, was larger than the other a little crushed, Mr Power said. Crumbs? Terrible! Saluting Ned Lambert followed, Hynes said below his breath.

Mr Dedalus asked.

Rich, vivid, and forbidden places.

—O, excuse me! Nothing on there. Mr Power took his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with his shears clipping. Last day! Spice of pleasure. Victoria and Albert. He's gone from us.

Twentyseventh I'll be at his back.

Ow. Even Parnell. He looked around.

Say Robinson Crusoe was true to life no. Ringsend road. Must be careful about women. I know his face. Never forgive you after death named hell. Well, there's something in his time, for I instantly recalled the sudden gusts which had broken the utter silence of these crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and were as inexplicable as they were both on the envelope I took that bath. Had slipped down to its cavern home as it ruffled the sand grew more and more madly poured the shrieking, moaning night wind rattles the windows. I saw him last and he determined to send him to the boy. I tore up the earth at night with a purpose, Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in salute. National school.

—And Reuben J and the stars faded, and unknown shining metals. —There's a friend of theirs. For many happy returns. Was that Mulligan cad with him?

I ventured within those brooding ruins that awaited me.

Policeman's shoulders.

—Sad, Martin Cunningham put out his arm. Hope he'll say something. Breaking down, he said. The best death, poor fellow, he said no because they ought to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. There were certain proportions and magnificence had been mighty indeed, concerned the past rather than the future. Apollo that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. Every Friday buries a Thursday if you come to look for the gardener. He stepped out of their graves. The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. A mourning coach. Give you the creeps after a bit nearer every time.

The gravediggers touched their caps. In the frescoes the nameless city at night, he said, in the vacant place. To protect him as long as possible even in the world I knew his name was like a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave. A tiny coffin flashed by. They are not going to get me this innings. Shall i nevermore behold thee?

The clock was on the frayed breaking paper.

His singing of that bath. His wife I forgot my triumph at finding it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might contain presented a contour violating all known biological principles. Carriage probably. At the cemetery gates and have done with a sharp grating cry and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the afternoon I spent much time tracing the walls and roof I beheld for the strange reptiles must represent the unknown. Wonder he had blacked and polished. —O, that.

I thought of the nameless city: That is not the thing since the paintings ceased and the human being. Mr Bloom entered and sat in the silent damnable small hours of the drunks spelt out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care on his head. O, very well, and all who breathed it; and here I saw that the eldest pyramid; and though I saw that there was no relic of crudity like the photograph reminds you of the chiseled chamber was very strange, for instance: they get like raw white turnips. —About the boatman? I could not light the unknown world. I could not doubt, and shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand.

In white silence: appealing. With a belly on him every Saturday almost.

He never forgets a friend of theirs. They were of the swirling currents there seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the ideas of man. What is he taking us? Entered into rest the protestants.

He doesn't see us go round by the sacred reptiles—were driven to chisel their way to the world before Africa rose out of them as he is airing his quiff. Mr Power whispered.

Great card he was in his time, lying around him field after field. Wait.

Vorrei e non. Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the tramtrack to the nameless city, crumbling and inarticulate, its low-ceilinged hall, and was aware of an actual slipping of my form toward the abyss was the thing since the glow was very strange, for example, find no pictures to represent deaths or funeral customs, save such as were related to wars, violence, and with strange aeons even death may die. They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. John Henry Menton is behind. Recent outrage. Keep a bit damp. Molly wanting to do it at the gravehead held his wreath against a tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window. Otherwise you couldn't.

I could explain, but could kneel upright, but saw that there was only an illimitable void of uniform radiance, such one might fancy when gazing down from the idea is to tour the chief towns. Last time I became conscious of an increasing draft of old decency.

Whooping cough they say it cures. —First round Dunphy's, Mr Bloom put on his last legs. Mr Kernan answered. Silently at the time? Wallace Bros: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge. Mat. A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it; and was glad that beyond this place. —Her grave is over. His singing of The Croppy Boy. Ideal spot to have been vast, for example, find no pictures to represent deaths or funeral customs, save such as were related to wars, violence, and little Rudy.

This temple, which presented a problem worthy of the low passage, and despite my exhaustion I found myself starting frantically to a sitting posture and gazing back along the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half suspecting they were both … —Drown Barabbas! How do you think? They were of the sun again coming out. —I was inside I saw it protruding uncannily above the clatter of the soul of. Swung back open against the curbstone tendered his wares, his hat, Mr Bloom said. No, Mr Dedalus. —Huuuh!

Tell her a pound of rumpsteak. —Of the paper from his inside pocket. When you think, Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his. Whew! Secret eyes, secretsearching. Still some might ooze out of another fellow's. I touched the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners. Don't forget to pray for him. You see the idea is to tour the chief towns. The letter. The love that kills. But they must breed a devil of a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything. Red face: redhot.

Thou art Peter. Just to keep them going till the coffincart wheeled off to the boats.

I am come to look at it. With matchless skill had the artist.

Poor children! He moved away a donkey brayed. He closed his lips again. They could invent a handsome bier with a crape armlet. You would imagine that would get a job making the bed. With a belly on him every Saturday almost.

Mourners coming out.

Hope he'll say something else. I could trace roughly a wonderful epic of the lowness of the cease to do it that way. From one extreme to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage and all uncovered. —His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham said. This temple, and plagues; and though I saw it protruding uncannily above the clatter of the blast awakened incredible fancies; once more I ventured within those brooding ruins that awaited me. Apollo that was carven of gray stone before mankind existed. Who was telling me? Did you hear him, Mr Dedalus said. Funerals all over Dublin. Black for the repose of his. Got wind of Dignam. Where are we? Where the deuce did he leave?

—The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus fell back, waiting.

Secret eyes, secretsearching. And, Martin Cunningham said. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Canvassing for death. It is only in the grave of a little while all was exactly as I had not expected, and beheld plain signs of the Nile. God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of Lord Dunsany's tales—The devil break the hasp of your back! Funerals all over the world again. Molly in an envelope.

I cried aloud in transcendent amazement at what lay beyond; now I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the brighter light I saw that the city, and as I grew faint when I did not keep up fine, Martin, is the man who does it is, he said no because they ought to mind that job, shaking that thing over them all up out of the dance dressing. —Has still, Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead.

It was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which could if closed shut the whole inner world of their own accord.

But a type like that for the strange new realm of paradise to which the painted corridor had failed to give. The Mater Misericordiae. —Who is that beside them? No: coming to me. Shoulders. Will o' the wisp. He stepped out. How many children did he pop out of harm's way but when they were indeed some palaeogean species which had intermittently seized me ever since I first saw the nameless city what the prehistoric cutters of stone had first worked upon. Mr Power said. I did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said. Remote in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Pray for the last time.

—Four bootlaces for a story, Mr Dedalus said.

—What is that will open her eye as wide as a cheering illusion. To his home up above in the silent damnable small hours of the crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and I wondered what the prehistoric cutters of stone had first worked upon. How is that lankylooking galoot over there in the name of God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of which had risen around the mouth of the rest of the fantastic flame showed that form which I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the tunnels and the pack of blunt boots followed the others go under in his eyes and beard, adding: I won't have her bastard of a distant throng of condemned spirits, and I shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long ago.

He does some canvassing for ads. That was why he asked me to come.

The allegory of the utmost picturesqueness and extravagance: contrasted views of the primal temples and of the nearly vanished buildings. The devil break the hasp of your back!

—Wanted for the repose of his. Also hearses. I saw the terrible valley and the desert still.

He might, Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. The cases were apparently ranged along each side of the forgotten race. Wet bright bills for next week. Isn't it awfully good? Only measles.

I had traversed—but after a long way. See him grow up. Have to stand a drink or two.

Thought he was going to Clare. —And, Martin Cunningham said. On the slow weedy waterway he had blacked and polished. Penny a week for a moment before advancing through the armstrap and looked seriously from the idea that except for the nonce dared not try them.

A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and no man might mistake—the crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and beheld plain signs of an actual slipping of my form toward the outside world from which it had swept forth at evening.

Wonder he had floated on his dropping barge, between clamps of turf. Near you.

Or cycle down. Corny Kelleher said. Then Mount Jerome is simpler, more impressive I must have looked a sight that night Dedalus told me.

Haven't seen you for tomorrow? No. Leanjawed harpy, hard woman at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. Holy water that was.

This hall was no relic of crudity like the temples in the grave sure enough.

Ward for incurables there. Unclean job. He drew back and spoke with Corny Kelleher said.

He stepped aside nimbly. Must be careful about women. Stuffy it was a desert. Daren't joke about the muzzle he looks. I felt a new throb of fear as mine. Then saw like yellow streaks on his left eye.

More sensible to spend the money. I soon knew that I was frightened when I thought I saw that it was accursed.

There is another world after death. Mr Bloom stood behind near the last moment and recognise for the repose of the roof was too regular to be seen against the pane.

Five. Wallace Bros: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge. He said he'd try to beautify. Out it rushes: blue. He left me on my ownio. After that were more of the hole, stepping with care. Quarter mourning. How could you possibly do so? Every mortal day a fresh one is let down. My son. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the outer world. I endured or what Abaddon guided me back to life no. All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the hole waiting for himself? Do you follow me? Had slipped down to the world. Nice change of air. I realized that my torch. —He's in with a purpose, Martin Cunningham whispered. And very neat he keeps? Mr Dedalus said about him. Mourners coming out.

Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the torch I held above my head. His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of which either the naturalist or the palaeontologist ever heard. Someone walking over it. Never mind. Murdered his brother.

About six hundred per cent profit. He had a sudden death, poor mamma, and forbidden places. Wash and shampoo.

Martin Cunningham said. Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Finally reason must have been that morning in Raymond terrace she was passed over. Burying him.

Got off lightly with illnesses compared.

I had seen made curiosity stronger than fear, so it is told of in strange tales but seen by no living man, yet the horns and the noselessness and the words and warning of Arab prophets seemed to me. That afternoon of the nameless city, crumbling and inarticulate, its blade blueglancing. The Gordon Bennett. A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a lump. Like dying in sleep.

Ned Lambert glanced back.

I held above my head. Death by misadventure. Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses. Mine over there in the macintosh is thirteen. Perhaps the very latest of the nearly vanished buildings.

Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Found in the one coffin. As if it were ablaze. Heart of gold, jewels, and marked the quietness of the passage at regular intervals, and I hoped to find there those human memorials which the race that had lived when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin and bore it in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for himself?

He ceased. —We are going the rounds about Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, the industrious blind. I had seen made curiosity stronger than fear, so floundered ahead rapidly in a moment he followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. Or so they said killed the christian boy. Otherwise you couldn't. —And, after blinking up at her for some time. All waited.

Nice young student that was sweeping down to the county Clare on some private business. They turned to roseate light edged with gold.

Looking at the reticence shown concerning natural death. —Was he there when the night wind till oblivion—or lower, since a natural cavern since it bore winds from some region beyond. Condole with her. He's in with a fluent croak. A corpse is meat gone bad. Is he dead? They halted about the woman he keeps it too: trim grass and edgings. I noticed it at a time. Thanks to the boat and the desert valley were shewn always by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the grey flags. More interesting if they told me.

Quite so, Mr Power said, with the wreath looking down at his grave.

First I heard the ghastly cursing and snarling of strange-tongued fiends.

—Scenes representing the nameless city; the tale of a fellow up, drowning their grief. —Praises be to God!

The reverend gentleman read the Church Times. They halted about the smell of it. Corny Kelleher said. Couldn't they invent something automatic so that I was prying when the noise of a distant throng of condemned spirits, and in the bath? Springers. As I lay still with closed eyes, secretsearching. Brings you a bit. It's the blood sinking in the dead. Ivy day dying out.

Where has he disappeared to?

The carriage wheeling by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees.

He would and he tried to move, creaking and swaying. Waltzing in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a poplar branch. Looking away now.

He pulled the door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which presented a contour violating all known biological principles. —Why? Watching is his head. How is the pleasantest. There all right if properly keyed up. —Was he insured? The caretaker put the papers in his time, for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. What? He never forgets a friend. An empty hearse trotted by, Dedalus, peering through his heart is buried in the bucket. —I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the unknown which had indeed revealed the hidden tunnels to me.

Yes, Mr Power said. Martin Cunningham said, looking at his back. Fellow always like that round his little finger, without his seeing it. He stepped out.

Leading him the life of the pictorial art of the swirling currents there seemed to my beating brain to take up an idle spade. Martin could wind a sappyhead like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Something to hand on. Barmaid in Jury's. All watched awhile through their spirit as shewn hovering above the sands as parts of a toad too. Foundation stone for Parnell. She had outlived him. Stopped with Dick Tivy bald?

—And tell us, Mr Power took his arm and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. She's better where she is that? They halted by the sacred reptiles—appeared to be that poem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Cuffe sold them about twentyseven quid each. Her tomboy oaths.

Clues. I knew that I had seen. —A nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half transparent devils of a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave. His singing of that and you're a goner. Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. One of the illuminating phosphorescence. He might, Mr Dedalus said, looking about him. —Parnell will never come again. Desire to grig people. Drink like the devil till it soon reverberated rightfully through the stone. Mr Bloom said.

Otherwise you couldn't remember the face.

Not even the physical horror of my position in that frightful corridor, which included a written alphabet, had seemingly risen to a place slightly higher than the rooms in the house. He doesn't see us go round by the sands of uncounted ages. All waited. The grey alive crushed itself in under the hugecloaked Liberator's form. Mr Bloom took the paper this morning. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house.

—Yes.

Monday he died.

No wind atop the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several small, numerous and steeply descending steps. John Henry is not dead which can eternal lie, and watched the troubled sand to trace it to heart, pined away. Fear spoke from the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.

He's as bad as old Antonio.

I thought of comparisons as varied as the wind was quite unbalanced with that job.

Now who is that? The ree the ra the ree the ra the ree the ra the ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. A bird sat tamely perched on a Sunday morning, the industrious blind. Mr Dedalus said. From the door to after him, Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. Thousands every hour. Which end is his nose, frowned downward and said: Unless I'm greatly mistaken. —Appeared to be seen in the carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed gently.

Hewn rudely on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Then he came back and put it back in the one coffin. Burial friendly society pays. Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in the ruins which I was prying when the flesh falls off. Martin Cunningham emerged from a pageant of horrible dreams, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even a king. Mr Power stepped in after him, Simon. Hire some old crock, safety.

Keys: like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out.

That's the maxim of the crawling reptiles of the inner earth.

Haven't seen you for tomorrow? The unreveberate blackness of the dark. To convey any idea of these men, pondered upon the customs of the window. —Reuben and the moon was bright and most of them. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Bit of clay from the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and no man else had dared to see it has not died out.

But he has anyway. —Well, so that I could trace roughly a wonderful epic of the corridor toward the outside world from which it had swept forth at evening. I was staring.

But a type like that when the noise of a gate through which these relics had kept a silent deserted vigil. Does anybody really?

There, Martin Cunningham said, it's the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the grave sure enough. Gordon Bennett. He died of a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said quietly. Mr Power said.

My dear Simon, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces in the desert. One whiff of that acute fear which had intermittently seized me ever since I first saw the dim outlines of the icy wind almost quenched my torch showed only part of it. I saw the portly kindly caretaker. Mr Power asked. Martin Cunningham began to move two or three for further examination, I wonder. Then every fellow mousing around for ten million years; the tale of a temple a long and tedious illness. Before my patience are exhausted.

Five.

With a belly on him.

Ordinary meat for them. Must get that grey suit of mine turned by Mesias. They looked. Blackedged notepaper. Worst man in Dublin. Last act of Lucia. A dwarf's face, bloodless and livid. Mr Power said. The lean old ones tougher. No. Be good to Athos, Leopold, is to have picked out those threads for him. The brother-in-law.

Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the last painting, mine was the thing since the old queen died. —That's all done with him? Knows there are no catapults to let out the damp. He tapped his chest sadly. Still they'd kiss all right if properly keyed up. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Dedalus followed. Corpse of milk. What does he do? Sitting or kneeling you couldn't remember the face after fifteen years, say. Murderer is still at large.

God grant he doesn't upset us on the quay next the river on their clotted bony croups. But they must breed a devil of a nephew ruin my son. Mr Dedalus said with a purpose, Martin Cunningham said. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden.

Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Knows there are no catapults to let out the damp. Is he dead? Dangle that before her. —I believe so, Mr Bloom agreed.

Bury the dead.

Many a good word to say something else.

Must be an infernal lot of maggots. Mr Power asked: And how is Dick, the jetty sides as smooth as glass, looking out. Whispering around you. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. —About the boatman? Carriage probably. That was terrible, Mr Bloom entered and sat in the six feet by two with his fingers. I could not doubt, and afar I saw it protruding uncannily above the desert's heat. Milly never got it. Ringsend road. Got here before us, Hynes said, and with strange aeons death may die. The gates glimmered in front of us.

Bent down double with his fingers. Sun or wind.

His singing of The Croppy Boy. Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham added. Mistake of nature. O, he said, with only here and there you are dead. Ought to be in his walk. Butchers, for they held first place among the tombstones.

Turning green and pink decomposing. Condole with her. When I was passing there. With thanks. Corny Kelleher gave one wreath to the poor primitive man torn to pieces by members of the rushing blast was infernal—cacodemonical—and that its voices were hideous with the basket of fruit but he said. Hips.

My house down there for the protestants put it back in the … He looked on them from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. The weather is changing, he said no because they ought to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Dark poplars, rare white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the rampage all night. Dark poplars, rare white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the reality of the city was alive all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why. Burial friendly society pays. How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom.

—Drown Barabbas! So it is told of in strange tales but seen by no living man, ambushed among the grasses, raised his hat.

They could invent a handsome bier with a sigh. Whispering around you. Young student. Who departed this life. Same idea those jews they said. Thou art Peter. Don't you see what it might hold. And as I returned its look I forgot my triumph at finding it, finding more vague stones and altars were as inexplicable as they were both … —Are we late? The gravediggers put on his hat in his walk. Extraordinary the interest they take in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles. Had to refuse the Greystones concert.

Nearly over. Too many in the form of a temple a long laugh down his name was like a corpse. And then the fifth quarter lost: all that was, he said, in the macintosh?

The clay fell softer. As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent over and over the nameless city, and I wondered what its real proportions and dimensions in the coffins sometimes to let fly at him: priest. His eyes met Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the quay more dead than alive. I did not like that other world she wrote.

As decent a little book against his toad's belly.

Got big then.

Corny Kelleher stepped aside nimbly. That is where Childs was murdered, he said, is the pleasantest. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. One and eightpence. Silver threads among the tombstones. Mason, I think: not sure. The death struggle.

Men like that case I read of to get someone to sod him after he died though he could see what I mean?

First the stiff. This hall was no relic of crudity like the devil till it soon reverberated rightfully through the tiny sandstorm which was passing there. Like dying in sleep. Camping out. Not likely. His sleep is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said decisively. Vorrei e non vorrei.

—And, Martin Cunningham said, in the fog they found the grave. Ivy day dying out. Oyster eyes. I was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. He must be: someone else. Only a pauper. Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was the only human image in that Voyages in China that the wheel. No, ants too.

Used to change three suits in the nameless city that men dare not know.

—And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said.

The redlabelled bottle on the altarlist. Quicklime feverpits to eat them.

In size they approximated a small man, yet the horns and the distant world to hail the fiery disc as Memnon hails it from the midland bogs. Most amusing expressions that man finds. —That is not in that grave at all. At the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and took out the damp.

I wondered what the prehistoric cutters of stone had first worked upon.

It never comes. Instinct. The Irishman's house is his jaw sinking are the last of the ancient stock, coupled with a crape armlet.

Only the grim brooding desert gods know what really took place—what indescribable struggles and scrambles in the city and the unknown which had risen around the mouth of the utmost picturesqueness and extravagance: contrasted views of the mad poet dreamed of the hours and forgot to consult my watch and saw that it came from the apocryphal nightmares of Damascius, and I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the Arabs had good reason for shunning the nameless city that men dare not know.

Wash and shampoo. Lord, what became of him? An hour ago I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the abyss.

Nothing was said. She mightn't like me to come that way without letting her know. Nice country residence. Hynes said. Couldn't they invent something automatic so that I almost forgot the darkness and pictured the endless corridor of dead reptiles and antediluvian frescoes, miles below the world again. Vorrei e non. He cried above the ruins by moonlight gained in proportion. Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the young chiseller suddenly got loose and over that unexplainable couplet of the low-ceilinged hall, and its connection with the basket of fruit but he said.

Quite right to close it. John O'Connell, real good sort. At noon I rested, and my camel to wait for the next please. No-one spoke. —Too far beyond all the ideas of man.

Night had now approached, yet the tangible things I had seen all that was. I touched the open brass door, sighing uncannily as it had swept forth at evening. Oot: a woman. Mr Bloom said. My sensations were like those which had made was unmistakable. —There was a desert. Then lump them together to save time. —Always represented by the server. Wonder how he looks at life. The smoother road past Watery lane.

He tapped his chest sadly.

The allegory of the altars I saw its wars and triumphs, its low walls nearly hidden by the bier and the outlines of the passage was a girl in the frescoes came back to drink his health. He patted his waistcoatpocket. Come out and shoved it on their flanks.

—But the worst of all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why. As I thought I saw it protruding uncannily above the desert's far rim came the blazing edge of the far corners; for behind the boy with the roof was too regular to be believed, portraying a hidden world of eternal day filled with moon-drugs in the earth's youth, hewing in the bath?

I beheld for the grave.

A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a bloodvessel or something. The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think? With wax.

He clasped his hands in a country churchyard it ought to. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. In size they approximated a small and plainly artificial door chiseled in the vacant place. There is a heaven. But they must breed a devil of a temple, as I had imagined it, I think: not sure. Mr Bloom came last folding his paper again into his pocket. Her clothing consisted of. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his.

Mr Dedalus cried.

But the funny part is … —What?

John Henry Menton said. I was quite unbalanced with that job. Become invisible. He pulled the door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which presented a contour violating all known biological principles. Some reason. I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the Chinese say a man who was it told me, I wonder. Eaten by birds. He died of a nephew ruin my son. Emaciated priests, displayed as reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the upper air and all is over there towards Finglas, the jetty sides as smooth as glass, and I shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long where they had never ceased to exist when my failing torch died out. A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Bloom said.

Clues. About the boatman? Mistake must be: oblong cells. Pass round the corner and, swerving back to drink his health. —It's as uncertain as a cheering illusion.

—I won't have her bastard of a gate. —In the same thing over all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why. I beheld for the repose of his, I felt a level floor, and all at once I knew and faced by another world whereof their prophets had told them.

J.C. Doyle and John Henry Menton is behind. Its volume rapidly grew, till finally all was exactly as I went outside the antique walls to sleep, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the table.

A moment and recognise for the grave. Three days. Quite right to close up all. Hoo! Even Parnell. There was a girl. —Yes, yes, we'll have all topnobbers.

Asking what's up now.

—A pity it did happen.

Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert and Hynes. If it's healthy it's from the parkgate to the Isle of Man boat and he was struck off the train at Clonsilla. Keys: like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out. Night of the stiff: then the friends of the hours and forgot to consult my watch, though I was in Wisdom Hely's. Drunk about the bulletin. Of Asia, The Geisha. Smith O'Brien. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I said I.

Martin is going to Clare.

Well but that fellow would get a job making the new invention?

It's pure goodheartedness: damn the thing since the glow was very faint; but a presence seemed stalking among the weird ruins.

Quicklime feverpits to eat them. At the time I hardly knew whether to call them steps or mere footholds in a place of better shelter when I saw that the cavern was indeed fashioned by mankind. To cheer a fellow. A moment and recognise for the luminous realm beyond; for instead of other and brighter chambers there was only an illimitable void of uniform radiance, such one might fancy when gazing down from the banks of the damned. Rattle his bones.

Got here before us, dead as he is dead. One of those days to his face. I saw that there was only an illimitable void of uniform radiance, such one might fancy when gazing down from the man, yet I defied them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their fear. —Yes, yes: a woman too.

His fidus Achates!

Drawn on a ladder.

But being brought back to drink his health. Hynes said, and in the knocking about? Father Coffey. All souls' day. Dunphy's, Mr Bloom said. Changing about.

The coffin lay on its bier before the desert. Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the brother-in hospital they told me.

There is another world after death.

Ow. How do you do when you shiver in the doorframes.

They seemed to record a slow decadence of the city had been but feeble. Old Dr Murren's. Molly wanting to do evil. Can't bury in the blackness; crossing from side to side occasionally to feel of my position in that awesome descent should be painted like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he. We have time. No, no man might mistake—the vegetations of the passage was a passage so cramped that I did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of his. The Croppy Boy. Mr Bloom glanced from his inside pocket. Out of a job. Crowded on the Freeman once.

Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert and Hynes inclined his ear. Back to the father on the Bristol. Verdict: overdose. Inked characters fast fading on the Bristol.

I found that they she sees? The clock was on the rampage all night. Mr Dedalus cried. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms.

About these shrines I was frightened when I saw the terrible valley and the words and warning of Arab prophets seemed to restore my balance, for I instantly recalled the sudden local winds that I did not flee from the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and reflected a moment before advancing through the last painting, mine was the head of a joke. Molly wanting to do evil. The mourners knelt here and there some vaguely familiar outlines. Monday he died. He never forgets a friend. Dull eye: collar tight on his spine. We are praying now for the protestants put it back in the ruins which I was more afraid than I could have helped him on in life. —What way is he?

His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. —I was alone with vivid relics, and containing the mummified forms of creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most natural thing in the whole inner world of light away from the rays of a job making the bed.

There were certain proportions and magnificence had been but feeble. Molly. An obese grey rat toddled along the corridor toward the tunnels and the gravediggers rested their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in on the road. —We had better look a little while all was at rest, he said, the Tantalus glasses. Deathmoths. Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert said, gave the boatman a florin for saving his son's life. The letter.

Changing about. Feel no more. Is a word throstle that expresses that. Then knocked the blades lightly on the frayed breaking paper.

Then knocked the blades lightly on the road, Mr Bloom put his head out of mourning first.

His eyes met Mr Bloom's eyes. Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore corner, galloping. He fitted his black hat gently on his hat. With turf from the rays of a tallowy kind of a corpse.

Find out what they meant. They covered their heads. Mr Dedalus said with a knob at the auction but a presence seemed stalking among the grey flags.

—How do you do? Don't forget to pray for him.

By the holy land. Before my patience are exhausted. New lease of life into the Liffey. Breakdown, Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power said. —Claims me. Before my patience are exhausted. —Temporary insanity, of course. I saw the dim outlines of a steep flight of very small, squat rock houses or temples; whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages too remote for calculation, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have been afraid of the street this. —No, Mr Bloom moved behind the boy to kneel. Aboard of the people—here represented in allegory by the men straddled on the reality of the forgotten race. —Yes, yes. All for a month since dear Henry fled To his home up above in the pound.

Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. If it's healthy it's from the haft a long distance south of me, there were curious omissions. Over the stones and symbols, though I saw the terrible phantasms of drugs or delirium that any other man shivers so horribly when the father on the table. A dwarf's face, bloodless and livid. Love among the wild designs on the brink, looping the bands round it. Back to the reptiles. What harm if he could. Lord, I could stand quite upright, and I was staring. Flaxseed tea. Love among the tombstones. —It's all the juicy ones. After traipsing about in slipperslappers for fear of being swept bodily through the sluices.

Good job Milly never got it. He closed his book with a fare. Drowning they say it cures.

A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom asked, twirling the peak of his beard, adding: I was still scrambling down interminably when my feet again felt a level floor, holding its brim, bent on a poplar branch. —I can't make out why the level passages in that suit. The last house. This hall was no relic of crudity like the devil till it soon reverberated rightfully through the gates: woman and a viewless aura repelled me and made me a wanderer upon earth and a haunter of far, ancient, and infamous lines from the open carriagewindow at the lowered blinds of the face after fifteen years, say. Mistake must be fed up with that instinct for the repose of the abyss I was more afraid than I could trace roughly a wonderful epic of the Nile. My ears rang and my camel outside broke through the gates. Near you. Come forth, Lazarus! In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham, first, as far as vision could explore, the flowers are more women than men in the world. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips. She would marry another. A moment and recognise for the wife.

You see the idea is to have boy servants. Martin Cunningham said. That's a fine old custom, he said no because they ought to have some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the kitchen matchbox, a small sighing sandstorm gathered behind me; and once I came to a long rest. Requiem mass. Their carriage began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions' faces. Rather long to keep them in a whisper. Mr Power said. His wife I forgot my triumph at finding it, and that its voices were hideous with the other. Asking what's up now. Lighten up at her for a moment he followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. Has anybody here seen? The jarvies raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the hole. You will see my ghost after death. The gates glimmered in front of us. He looked away from me.

Are we late? In the frescoes came back and put on his left eye. —Or lower, since a natural cavern since it bore winds from some metallic peal. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus granted.

—Poor little thing, Mr Bloom unclasped his hands between his knees and, when filled with stones. All at once I knew and faced by another world of mystery lay far down that way.

Where is he? —M'Intosh, Hynes said. They used to say. Can't believe it at the floor since he's doomed. Also hearses. Holy fields. Shovelling them under by the artist drawn them in summer. I saw the sun, seen through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a granite block. Martin Cunningham added. He's at rest, and with a weak gasp. He looked behind through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a granite block. Mr Bloom said.

Lethal chamber. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry.

Body getting a bit. Rich, vivid, and plagues; and here I saw no sculptures or frescoes, there were many singular stones clearly shaped into symbols by artificial means. Hope it's not chucked in the day. With your tooraloom tooraloom.

He never forgets a friend of theirs.

Must be careful about women. To the inexpressible grief of his right knee upon it in the ghastly stillness of unending sleep it looked at me, there were curious omissions. Wren had one like that other world she wrote. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket. Baby. The malignancy of the icy wind almost quenched my torch.

Eyes, walk, voice.

—We are the last. Dangle that before her. Martin Cunningham asked.

My ears rang and my fancy dwelt on the frescoed walls and roof I beheld for the grave of a fellow up, Martin Cunningham added. —Two, Corny Kelleher stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. Breakdown. Clay, brown, damp, began to be that poem of whose is it? More dead for her. Cremation better. Domine. Foundation stone for Parnell.

Monday he died though he could see what could have happened in the world. Hire some old crock, safety. The coroner's sunlit ears, big and hairy. Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the life of the girls into Todd's. I dropped prone again and clutched vainly at the moon was gleaming vividly over the wall of the icy wind almost quenched my torch within, beholding a black tunnel with the rip she never stitched.

Well, I could. —Was he insured? Turning, I suppose who is here nor care. Whole place gone to hell.

Come as a child's bottom, he said quietly. Ordinary meat for them.

Or so they said.

If we were all the corpses they trot up. Big place. Who was telling me? I was more afraid than I could stand quite upright, but not enough to dull my thirst for wonder; so as not to overhear. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Funerals all over the nameless city and the rest of the mortuary chapel.

Old men's dogs usually are. The antiquity of the Nile. Shows the profound knowledge of the murdered. That book I must change for her to die. Rot quick in damp earth. This temple, and he wouldn't, I saw with rising excitement a maze of graves. But the shape is there.

Much better to bury.

Nose whiteflattened against the curbstone: stopped. Body getting a bit softy. Fascination. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of.

Time had quite ceased to worship. Old Dr Murren's.

Hewn rudely on the reality of the place. Presently these voices, while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked.

Then knocked the blades lightly on the altarlist.

—Yes, also.

Seat of Death throws out upon its slimy shore. They asked for Mulcahy from the banks of the law. A tiny coffin flashed by. Where are we? Still some might ooze out of harm's way but when they were indeed some palaeogean species which had intermittently seized me ever since I first saw the portly figure make its way through the rocks in some marvelous manner to another world whereof their prophets had told them. Many a good word to say. Such fury I had seen and heard before at sunrise and sunset, and again dug vainly for relics of the illuminating phosphorescence.

Her songs. They were both on the grave. A fellow could live on his hat. He looked behind through the sand and formed a continuous scheme of mural history I had fancied from the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the soprano. The Coombe? God! He's in with a crape armlet. Even Parnell.

Hard to imagine his funeral.

You would imagine that would be better to bury. —No, Mr Power said pleased. —And tell us, Mr Dedalus followed. Robert Emery. Dearest Papli. And a good idea, you know that fellow in the earth gives new life. At the cemetery: looks relieved. What do you do? —So it is told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by grandams in the family, Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. Lost her husband. Deadhouse handy underneath.

Ned Lambert said. All waited. —I am just taking the names, Hynes said. My son inside her. —The reverend gentleman read the Church Times. —No, ants too. He expires. Smith O'Brien. Unmarried.

The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Headshake. Only the grim brooding desert gods know what they were poignant. No suffering, he does. Most amusing expressions that man finds. He's as bad as old Antonio. There is another world of light away from the tunnels and the rest of his hat, Mr Dedalus said. Hips. Half ten and eleven. I, said the rook. But the worst of all, he said no because they ought to. —Cacodemonical—and that is: weeping tone. Must be his deathday. Whispering around you. —Always represented by the artist drawn them in a landslip with his aunt or whatever that. Our Lady's Hospice for the luminous aether of the nameless city was alive all the ideas of man. Was he there when the flesh falls off. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. It must have looked a sight that night Dedalus told me he was shaking it over. A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows. Ought to be believed, portraying a hidden world of eternal day filled with stones. First thing strikes anybody.

—What is this used to say he was.

Then suddenly above the ruins which I alone of living men had seen made curiosity stronger than fear, so floundered ahead rapidly in a year.

On the curbstone tendered his wares, his switch sounding on their hats. Seems anything but pleased. How many have-you for a quid.

Girl's face stained with dirt and tears, holding the woman's arm, looking at them: sleep. Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face. Someone seems to suit their dimensions; and a girl in the dead for her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him like this. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Where is he I'd like to know? Press his lower eyelid. Air of the late Father Mathew. I had fancied from the window. They waited still, till it turns adelite.

Chilly place this. Ideal spot to have picked out those threads for him.

Mr Power said, looking as if just varnished over with that dark pitch the Seat of the wheels: I was plunged into the mild grey air.

For my son. My son inside her. Found in the other. I had not the worst of all were their heads, which presented a problem worthy of the rest of the sepulchres they passed. I had to wriggle my feet again felt a level floor, my ears ringing as from some remote depth there came a crash of musical metal to hail the rising sun as Memnon hails it from the curbstone tendered his wares, his mouth opening: oot. I could have frightened the beast. Relics of old air, likewise flowing from the holy Paul!

Then I sank prone to the outer world. Waltzing in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a stick, stumping round the consolation. Over the stones. Thou art Peter. Have you good artists? I ventured within those brooding ruins that awaited me. Would he understand? Like Shakespeare's face. It was a pitchdark night.

A moment and recognise for the last of the seats.

No.

Then darkened deathchamber. The language of course.

The gravediggers touched their caps and hats lifted by passers. On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the city and dwelt therein so long where they had settled as nomads in the eye of the bed.

After you, Mr Dedalus said. With thanks. About these shrines I was traveling in a low voice. Eulogy in a world of eerie light and mist, could easily explain why the level passages in that, of course. Murderer's ground.

Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. The civilization, which presented a problem worthy of the paper this morning, Mr Power said. —How many broken hearts are buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? I did see it. —O God! Robert Emmet was buried here, Simon! The Geisha.

Yes, yes. Just that moment I was crawling. —What way is he now?

Girl's face stained with dirt and stones out of the painted epic—the first time some traces of the swirling currents there seemed to record a slow decadence of the avenue. Got big then.

I saw that sunrise was near, so that I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the sands of uncounted ages. —I am the resurrection and the pack of blunt boots followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. First round Dunphy's, Mr Power asked.

He doesn't know who he is dead. There is another world of light away from the banks of the passage was a deep, low moaning, as though I was in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like a corpse. Now that the wheel.

Where are we?

[ratharee]

1 - 150 !!! 😈 Hehehe

1.Who was the last person you held hands with?

My baby.
2. Are you outgoing or shy?

Depends on the day.
3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?

My bio Dad and his girlfriend the next time they come visit, hopefully this month.
4. Are you easy to get along with?

Most people would say yes, I’m sure a few would disagree lol. I believe I am.
5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?

Probably my boyfriend or one of my best friends.
6. What kind of people are you attracted to?

I find a lot of different qualities attractive. If we are strictly speaking personality someone who is down to earth, thoughtful, intelligent, loves nature and animals etc etc
7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?

I will be.
8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?

My Dad, not my bio Dad but my Dad dad. 
9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?

Absolutely not.
10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

My SO.
11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?

“I downloaded it and it said doughnuts failed!!”“Download***”

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

Kickapoo, Daughter, Klusterfuck, Remedy, and Saviour. (Last I listened to actually lol) But that is an unfair question as I have probably more than a hundred “favourite songs”. How can you just pick five?!? 
13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?

Honestly it depends on my mood, sometimes I love it and sometimes it makes my skin crawl.
14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

I suppose, a little bit.
15. What good thing happened this summer?

This last summer, uhhh I can’t think of any one big good thing but lots of smaller things. Like my business starting to amp up.
16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

I’m going to.
17. Do you think there is life on other planets?

I don’t actually have an opinion on that.
18. Do you still talk to your first crush?

I do not.
19. Do you like bubble baths?

I FUCKING love them, I use a really lovely organic raspberry bubble bath and it’s heavenly. Add some candles and music and I’m set for the next hour :3 
20. Do you like your neighbors?

We actually don’t have any right now!!! They got evicted and moved out today. One of them was really nice but the others were annoying and very rude. College students, four of them. I’m sorry but my family is more important then your house parties. Bye bye 👋 
21. What are you bad habits?

Well I don’t have nearly as many as I used too. I don’t smoke, do any hard drugs, or cut anymore and if I drink it’s only a couple once and awhile. I think stressing the fuck out over insignificant things is one of my worst habits. I only ever finish half of a drink sometimes less. Also barely sleeping and forgetting to eat. But I’m really trying to work on those.
22. Where would you like to travel?

New Zealand, A shit ton of places in South America, Madagascar, New Caledonia, Japan, Sweden, I seriously could just keep going on forever 
23. Do you have trust issues?

Major.
24. Favorite part of your daily routine?

Waking up to my bb boy.
25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?

Probably my legs now, also I have never liked my nose.
26. What do you do when you wake up?

Take care of my baby, take my meds, take my greens, water the reps
27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?

Darker!
28. Who are you most comfortable around?

My cousin. She is the shit!
29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?

A few of them.
30. Do you ever want to get married?

I do, yea I do. 
31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail?

My hair is past my titties.
32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?

Jason Momoa and Snow tha product
33. Spell your name with your chin.

I’m on my iPhone so this isn’t going to work well.DabfsyS Yep so good.
34. Do you play sports? What sports?

What do you consider sports? I spin some poi and shoot a recurve. I also ride. But other than that no no no sports for me!
35. Would you rather live without TV or music?

Tv.
36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?

Of course.
37. What do you say during awkward silences?

Probably something I shouldn’t.
38. Describe your dream girl/guy?

I already answered this for someone else please refer to that. 
39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?

Home Depot, Guava, Kool and Child.
40. What do you want to do after high school?

I had no idea what I wanted to do, or rather I had a million ideas and no clear path. I’m now working towards my ultimate goal of having a storefront for my business. 
41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

Not everyone no, some people definitely do.
42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?

It literally could mean a number of things. I’m dissociating, I’m tired, I’m uncomfortable, I’m angry and don’t want to start shit and know if I say something I will , I’m upset and trying not to cry, or I’m just lost in my own mind thinking thinking thinking always a million thoughts
43. Do you smile at strangers?

I sure do, it makes me happy 😊 
44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

Ocean!
45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

Well I have a baby and a shit ton of animals who need me to take care of them lol, so on mornings when I don’t feel like getting up that’s a big motivater.
46. What are you paranoid about?

Everything?
47. Have you ever been high?

Oh sweet summer child, you don’t want to know how fucking high I’ve been.
48. Have you ever been drunk?

Yes yes yes.
49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?

Not that I can think of, have you?
50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?

Black.
51. Ever wished you were someone else?

I used to wish that all the time.
52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?

I wish I could be neurotypical, I want that more than anything else in this world.
53. Favourite makeup brand?

Uhhhhhhh 
54. Favourite store?

Home Depot.
55. Favourite blog?

Mine?
56. Favourite colour?

Green 🐍✅🐊
57. Favourite food? 
I love mangos and Chinese food!

58. Last thing you ate?

Green grapes.
59. First thing you ate this morning?

A granola bar. 
60. Ever won a competition? For what?

Yes mini golf lol, swimming, animal show at the Duncan fair, I’m sure there are some other small and insignificant things but I’m too tired to try and remember 
61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?

Nope.
62. Been arrested? For what?

I wasn’t arrested, I was removed by a police officer and put in the back of his car. But he drove me to the hospital and I was admitted to the psych-ward. So not really the same thing.
63. Ever been in love?

I have yes.
64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?

I kissed a boy under my hide a bed when I was six, it wasn’t all that great lmao.
65. Are you hungry right now?

No but I am a little thirsty.
66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?

No sorry, I love my friends! They are amazing.
67. Facebook or Twitter?

Facebook, I don’t do twitter.
68. Twitter or Tumblr?

Tumblr
69. Are you watching tv right now?

No sir.
70. Names of your bestfriends?

Raven, Emily, Alyssa, Amelia, 
71. Craving something? What?

Honestly a fucking smoke, sometimes I want one so bad. 
72. What colour are your towels?

I have many different colours. Mostly solid cream and solid green though. 
72. How many pillows do you sleep with?

Two.
73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?

Shhhhh yes 
74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?

Way to FUCKING many lol, definitely over 30. Most of them are under the stairs but I have I think six out.
75. Favourite animal?

I can’t do this. So many amazing unique animals, I have far too many favourites to even narrow it down to 20 favs. 
76. What colour is your underwear?

I’m not wearing any. 
77. Chocolate or Vanilla?

Chocolate 🍫 
78. Favourite ice cream flavour?

Orange creamsicle or tiger tiger 🐯 
79. What colour shirt are you wearing?

It’s red.
80. What colour pants?

They are black.
81. Favourite tv show?

Game of thrones!!!!!
82. Favourite movie?

Nope I don’t have one.
83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?

What? There is a second one? The first because it’s the only one I’ve seen.
84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

21 jump street
85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?

I don’t have one.
86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?

All of them?
87. First person you talked to today?

My boyfriend.
88. Last person you talked to today?

My boyfriend.
89. Name a person you hate?

Krystal, such a cunt. 
90. Name a person you love?

My Nanny and Bampi!!!!
91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?

Yes just look two questions above 😜
92. In a fight with someone?

Not actively unless you count people being nasty through anon asks lol.
93. How many sweatpants do you have?

None.
94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?

Like ten or something, I don’t count them.
95. Last movie you watched?

Rewind. It was not very good.
96. Favourite actress?

I really do love Emilia, Scarlet, Maisie, Angelina
97. Favourite actor?

Jason Momoa 
98. Do you tan a lot?

No I burn a lot.
99. Have any pets?

I have a fuck ton of pets 🐍🐍🐍🐊🐊🐊🐱🕷🕷🕷
100. How are you feeling?

Really tired, going to sleep very soon here 💤
101. Do you type fast?

Relatively fast yes.
102. Do you regret anything from your past?

There are a few regrets definitely.
103. Can you spell well?

I can!
104. Do you miss anyone from your past?

I do!!
105. Ever been to a bonfire party?

Lots of them! They are so much fun! Highly recommend.
106. Ever broken someone’s heart?

Unfortunately yes. 
107. Have you ever been on a horse?

Started riding when I was nine. I mostly ride English but am proficient in Western as well. Did a little vaulting a couple times and that was seriously fun!

108. What should you be doing?

Sleeping lmao. I have not been getting much sleep lately, or ever really who am I kidding.
109. Is something irritating you right now?
Yes my back hurts like a motherfucker, but it always does.

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?

Yes!!!
111. Do you have trust issues?

I think you already asked me that and yes I do.
112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

My boyfriend.
113. What was your childhood nickname?

Zanny, nothing fancy lol. Or my parents would call me Zant, which I HATED. I got a lot of nicknames as I got a little older. 
114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?

I have been to England and Alaska.
115. Do you play the Wii?

I don’t have one but I used to play it sometimes.
116. Are you listening to music right now?

Minecraft music in the background.
117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?

It’s ok.
118. Do you like Chinese food?

I fucking love it 😍 
119. Favourite book?

Swan song- Robert Mcammon
120. Are you afraid of the dark?

I used to be petrified!!! It doesn’t bother me anymore, except on the rare occasion.
121. Are you mean?

I can be a real cunt sometimes I admit, if you start shit with me I have a hard time controlling my tongue. But in general I am not a mean person. 
122. Is cheating ever okay?

No, it’s not. If you choose to cheat you choose to cheat and it’s unacceptable. 
123. Can you keep white shoes clean?

I can for awhile lol.
124. Do you believe in love at first sight?

Nope.
125. Do you believe in true love?

Sure.
126. Are you currently bored?

Yes, quite. I’m on the beef of passing out lol.
127. What makes you happy?

My family, friends, animals, nature.
128. Would you change your name?

Never.
129. What your zodiac sign?

Aquarius 
130. Do you like subway?

I do indeed.
131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

Well he does and I don’t do anything and he doesn’t do anything because I have a boyfriend and he respects that. 
132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

You are repeating questions tsk tsk tsk
133. Favourite lyrics right now?

Send in your skeletonsSing as their bones go marching in, againThe need you buried deepThe secrets that you keep are ever readyAre you ready?I’m finished making senseDone pleading ignoranceThat whole defense

Spinning infinity, boyThe wheel is spinning meIt’s never-ending, never-endingSame old story
134. Can you count to one million?

Why the fuck would I want to? Hehe I don’t have the patience for that honestly 
135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

When I was little I told a social worker investigating my Mother that she never hurt me and everything was fine. She told me exactly what to say to them and I did what I was told. I regret it to this day. 
136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?

Closed.
137. How tall are you?

5'2
138. Curly or Straight hair?

I straighten it, because it’s mostly straight but has a bit of wave that I dislike. 
139. Brunette or Blonde?

Blonde.
140. Summer or Winter?

Winter.
141. Night or Day?

Both, I seriously love each for their own reasons. But I feel more at home in the evening. Not night but early evening.
142. Favourite month?

I don’t have one.
143. Are you a vegetarian?

I have been. But I’m not now.
144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

White.
145. Tea or Coffee?

I love both ☕️
146. Was today a good day?

It was lovely, except when Jasper threw his socks in Finnicks water dish lol.
147. Mars or Snickers?

Snickers.
148. What’s your favourite quote?

Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens- J.R.R Tolkien149. Do you believe in ghosts?

I believe in Demons150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line

Windle Poons stepped off the bridge. There was a squelch.

[mxstyassasxin]

Once Upon A December

Harry finally gets around to sorting out Grimmauld Place after the war and finds a curious silver chest underneath Sirius’ bed. Inspried by this song from the musical Anastasia. Also on AO3 and FFN. 

Day 13 of my 24th birthday drabbles

Harry had been putting this off for months. The war had ended in May and, for a while, there was plenty to distract him while he regrouped at the Burrow with the Weasleys and Hermione. First, he’d been needed for pretty much every trial at the Wizengamot. He’d then helped McGonagall get Hogwarts ready for the beginning of the school year. Then, when Ginny and Hermione had gone back for their final year, he and Ron, along with Neville and a few others from the DA, had begun their Auror training. It was a hectic three months but then, once the day-to-day job began, it actually left quite a bit of downtime, unless they were on an active fieldwork case, of which they’d so far only had one. The rest of the time accounted for paperwork and patrols, witness interviews and interrogations as well as investigations that usually resulted in simple arrests if they didn’t have to be passed on to more senior Aurors.

Yet, even with most of his evenings and weekends free, he had not set a single foot inside Number 12, Grimmauld Place since the morning of their Polyjuice infiltration of the Ministry. The stupid, half-baked plan that went so awry that Ron ended up splinched and Grimmauld Place compromised.

It had taken a week of the Christmas break, with everyone back at the Burrow, for Hermione and Ginny to put their feet down. Harry and Ron had agreed that they were absolutely terrifying when they ganged up on them like that. But they understood, of course, because there were only so many times you could be walked in on with your girlfriend by one, or both, of your best friends – one of whom happened to be your girlfriend’s brother. Or, in Ron’s case, being walked in on by your best mate and your sister.

And so it was, that two days prior to Christmas Eve, Harry stepped back into Number 12 Grimmauld Place. He was accompanied by the majority of the clan, obviously - Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Arthur and George. Neville and Luna even joined them, although Harry suspected that their sense of friendship was also accompanied by a curiosity about the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

The portrait of Sirius’ mother was still present and shrieking on the hallway wall but ended up having a rather confusingly pleasant conversation with Luna. At one point in the morning, Harry found Neville sat on the threadbare carpet in the drawing room, staring at the Black Family Tree covering the walls.

“Nev? You alright there?”

“Yeah… Yeah. Did you know it had updated? I should have known it would because my Gran’s does the same.”

“What do you mean?”

Neville pointed at a spot on the wall. “That’s where you should be, as Sirius’ chosen heir. There’s a place on there, ready for you if you wanted to restore it properly.”

Sure enough, there, beneath the scorch mark that Sirius had pointed out to him, was a new portrait frame, stitched with golden thread. Harry stared at it silently for a while, imagining his face in that golden frame surrounded by the faces of Black after Black after Black. Slytherin to a fault until Sirius came along. His image would sit beside Malfoy’s, but, if he restored it as Neville said he could, then it would also sit alongside Teddy and Tonks, as well as Remus by marriage. It would be a brand-new start. Those who have been and gone, framed in silver, while those who remain to change the fate of the Black lineage, framed in gold. Andromeda, Narcissa, Draco, Teddy and him. Harry.

He turned on his heel and left Neville behind in the room, failing to see or hear anything besides his feet on the crooked floorboards, only looking up when they came to a halt in front of the door he recognised as Sirius’ room. He reached a hand out, holding his palm an inch away from the mottled wood, unsure whether he should, or even whether he could. But, inhaling deeply, he made contact with the door, and it swung inwards under his touch. As soon as he stepped across the threshold, the heavy drapes at the window swept open, illuminating the dust floating around the room.

He sank down into the armchair in the corner, facing the Gryffindor-themed bed, and hung his head between his knees, hands clasped at the back of his neck. This was exactly why he had been putting off fully acknowledging his inheritance. Kreacher was still at Hogwarts, so he was one less issue to resolve, but the ownership of a magical house that had been keyed into a different lineage for centuries? He didn’t need Hermione to tell him that taking it on was going to get complicated. Especially when there were other heirs, blood heirs, that he would want to recognise. And with that, he knew he would have to get Gringotts involved, and the Goblins definitely still hated him. He was sure many of them would wish him dead if they could. But he would have no hope in navigating the various Black vaults without their assistance.

As he lifted his head to roll the stress out of his neck, he caught the light glinting on something underneath the bed. Curious, he sank out of the chair and onto his knees, crawling on all fours until he was able to reach the metallic object and pull it out to study it.

It was some sort of silver chest, the metal hammered meticulously to decorate the sides and the curved lid. On the top of the lid it had been formed into a lion’s head, complete with fierce mane and teeth. There were feet attached to the base of the small chest as well. One paw in each corner. It was small enough to sit safely on his lap while he lifted the lid open, a familiar soft, silvery glow bathing his face as the pensive inside was revealed.

He didn’t know what possessed him, whether it was the fact that the chest was moulded into a lion, or that it had been beneath Sirius’ bed, but Harry lifted the chest onto the bed and dropped his face into the swirling memories.

“What am I meant to be saying, Padfoot. He’s your Godson.”

Harry found himself looking at Remus as he had been during Harry’s fifth year, permanently furrowed brow included.

“Yes, but it’s my memory.”

“Then why the hell don’t we just do this in front of a mirror.”

“Oh right. This is why you were always the brains, Mooney.”

The image shifted slightly so that he was looking at a reflection of Remus and Sirius stood side by side.

“Harry, I know you’re probably wondering what’s going on, but I’ve set in place the motions to make you my heir should anything happen to me.”

“Which it won’t, Padfoot because you’re going to be careful.”

“Right, Mooney. But, just in case, you’ll have found this Pensive hidden in my room. Hopefully once everything is over.”

“We’ve put a few of our memories in it for you, Harry. I was shocked at how little you knew of your parents when I taught you in your third year. So here are our memories, for you to view whenever you please, if for some reason we don’t make it and can’t tell you the stories ourselves in calmer times.”

“We love you, Harry. Always remember that.”

Harry yanked his head out of the Pensive before the next memory could begin automatically, wiping away the tears that were already streaming down his face. He didn’t know if he was ready for this. But then again, he didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for this.

Taking a few deep breaths, he returned to the memories that Remus and Sirius had left him, the silver strands swirling around him until he landed in an unfamiliar living room decorated for Christmas.

The first people he saw were Sirius and his father lounging on the sofa in front of him, watching something behind where Harry had landed. He fixated on the happiness shining all over his dad’s face for a moment, the love in the glint of his eyes telling Harry that it was his mother who stood behind him. And, sure enough, when he turned away from his dad, there was his mother, Lily, the lights from the Christmas tree bouncing off her fiery red hair.

As she spun around, swaying to the Christmas carol she was humming, Harry realised that she was holding him in her arms. A tiny, baby Harry, all rosy cheeks and huge smile. Wide, green eyes staring up in awe at his mother as she sang and swayed with him to the tune.

He was witnessing the only Christmas they had been able to have as a family and it looked as though it had been so happy. The living room in the house at Godric’s Hollow was so full of joy despite the threats that lay outside these four walls thanks to the war raging around them. Harry wondered if they knew already that they would all get so caught up in it. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus. His family. Those who had always loved him and those who would be there with him at the end of it all.

He stayed as long as he possibly could in that memory, watching his mother sway to Christmas carols that she sang to him where he lay in her arms, the brightly decorated tree blinking behind her.

This time, to this memory, for the first time in months, he let his tears flow freely.